
THE GREAT WAR 



OF 




hu versus 




icanism. 



OK 



THE SOVEREIGNTY OF ONE MAN OR 

THE FEW 



VERSUS 



The Sovereignty, Equal Rights and Liberties 

of the People. 



=3> •>£ 



SHOWING THE MEASURES NECESSARY FOR DESTROYING 

MONOPOLIES AND CHAINING THE DRAGON 

POWER OF MONARCHY FOREVER. 



By B. J. Chambers, 

AUTHOR OF "SACRED COIN CONTRACTS," "OPEN LETTERS TO PRESIDENT 
CLEVELAND," AND OTHER BRIEF POLITICAL ESSAYS. 



Copyright 1887 by the author. All rights reserved. 



CHRONICLE JOB OFFICE PRINT, 
CLEBURNE, TEXAS. 

1888. 



THE GREAT WAR 



OF 



onarGhu versus ReDiJbliGanism 



OF 



THE SOVEREIGNTY OF ONE MAN OR 

THE FEW 



VERSUS 



The Sovereignty, Equal Eights and Liberties 

of the People. 



SHOWING THE MEASURES NECESSARY FOR DESTROYING 

MONOPOLIES AND CHAINING THE DRAGON 

POWER OF MONARCHY FOREVER. 



<V 



/ 



By B. J. Chambers, 

AUTHOR OF "SACRED COIN CONTRACTS," "OPEN LETTERS TO PRESIDENT 
CLEVELAND," AND OTHER BRIEF POLITICAL ESS ATS. 



Copyright 1887 by the author. All rights reserved. 



1888: 
CHRONICLE JOB OFFICE PRINT. 
CLEBTXRNE, TEXAS. 






\V'' 



PREFACE, 

It has ever been a favorite theory of the Kings and Princes of the 
world that the people are incapable of self government, as in a 
republic, based upon the sovereignty and equal rights of the people. 
And while the theory seems to be proved true by the failure of all 
experiments of this character in past ages of the world, and seems 
likely again to be proved true by a like failure in our government, as 
in the history of other republics, yet. the author stubbornly refuses to 
accept the theoiy as necessarily and infallibly true. And, hence, 
noting the methods by which its fundamental principles have been 
destroyed, viz: by the assumption or usurpations of powers not dele- 
gated, by our national legislators and public servants, thus consti- 
tuting themselves a hj'dra-headed monarchical dragon power rob- 
bing and plundering the people of their natural, equal rights in their 
national, common or sovereign properties and transferring them at 
discretion, like other absolute sovereigns, to corporations and favor- 
ed persons or classes. The seizure and usurpation of such powers 
by the legislators and public servants of the people was a complete 
wreck of the basis or fundamental principles of our government, a 
revolution in fact—creating an oligarchy of favored persons and 
classes invested with monopolies of the sovereign properties of the 
people and enslaving them for their use. as in oligarchies or abso- 
lute monarchies. 

Considering these facts in connection with the claim of these con- 
spirators against the sovereignty, equal rights and liberties of the 
people, and to ascertain, if possible, what defect there is in the con- 
stitutional organic provisions, which made these results possible he 
could find no defect except in not more clearly defining and limit- 
ing the power of the public servants of the people in the adminis- 
tration and distribution of their sovereign properties. And as to 
the claim of the usurpers of constitutional authority for their trea- 
sonable acts he could find none and has refuted the claim in chapter 
IV and other chapters of this work. 

The argument throughout is not theoritical but consists mainly of 
a statement of fundamental principles, prominent facts and others in 
the nature of corollaries: and urges the necessity of the resumption 
by the people of the ownership, control and equal rights in their 
common or sovereign properties, and the adoption of a constitutional 
amendment (exhibited) more clearh~ defining the powers of their 
public servants in the administrations of these properties. And while 
opposing all violent or radical measures in the process of resump- 
tion, suggests measures by which it can be accomplished without 
doing any real injur}^ to any class of our fellow r citizens : Thus 
inaugurating a government of the people that shall never be des- 
troyed. The Author. 

Note : This work has been delayed several weeks by being burned with our office, a large 
part of which the author has had to rewrite. 

Editor Chronicle. 



The Leading Triath or Proposition. 

o 

That in all civilized nations then are certain properties consisting 
of the land, the money and public highways of communication and 
commerce, that are recognized as governmental properties: that these 
properties embod}* all the elements of wealth and political power; 
and that they are universally found in the ownership and control of 
the sovereign or governing person or class. And, hence as a corol- 
lary truth : 

That whoever, (any one or class of citizens) by whatever means, 
whether by brute force with sword and spear, usually practiced in 
the establishment of monarchies, or through the forms of uncon- 
stitutional laws as practiced b} 7 the legislators and public servants 
of the people in republican governments, can or may acquire the 
recognized ownership and control of these properties thereby 
acquires the essential elements of sovereignt} T and the power of 
enslaving the people for their necessary use in the support of life 
and existence. And, therefore, throughout the work the methods 
through which the people are plundered of their equal rights in these 
properties will be exposed, the necessity of the resumption of the 
ownership and control of these properties by the people will be 
urged, and the absolute necessity for the adoption of a constitu- 
tional amendment (exhibited) by the people more clearly defining 
and limiting the power of their legislators and public servants in 
the administration and distribution of these properties. 

By The Author. 



THE GKRE.AJI 1 ^*r.A.:R 

o 

OF MONARCHY VERSUS REPUBLICANISM. 

o 

CHAPTER I. 

THAT THERE IS AND EVER HAS BEEN A SEEMINGLY IRREPRESSIBLE 

AND PERPETUAL CONFLICT BETWEEN THESE TWO FORMS OR 

SYSTEMS OF GOVERNMENT, AND THAT MONARCHY OR. 

The sovereignly of one man or the few. in all past ages of the 
world has ever been successful in the contest, need not be affirmed, 
for all history testifies to the truth. But the question arises, how 
is it possible for one man or the few to subjugate and enslave 
opposing millions, undermine and destroy their form of government 
and set up monarchies or oligarchies in their stead ? As, for-instance. 
how can or will it ever be possible for one man or the few to des- 
troy our government which nine-tenths of the Democratic and 
Republican millions constituting it desire to maintain and perpet- 
uate, and passionately hating monarchy and all its principles and 
practices. Considering only the direct operation of opposing forces 
this would seem to be impossible; but that it is possible, however, 
cannot be doubted or questioned, because we know from history 
that all other Republics have been destroyed and monarchies erected 
on their ruins. It is, therefore, manifest that there must be some 
insidious processes or methods through which this is accomplished. 
not generally understood by the great masses of the people, or they 
would be guarded against and prevented. To explain and expose 
these methods, so that the people understanding them may be 
enabled to prohibit and restrain .their operation in the future, is the 
great object of the author in writing this little book. In this effort 
he will endeavor not to confuse or weary the minds of his readers by 
any tedious, abstruse or metaphysical disquisitions on the so-called 
science of government as usually practiced by the writers of pon- 
derous volumes: but, by a plain statement of a few prominent truths, 
well attested by history, in connection with the fundamental prin- 
ciples which distinguish these two forms or systems of government, 
show wherein this controlling and enslaving power exists, how it is 
acquired and put in operation by one man or the few. and how to 
limit and restrain their operation in the future. 

The first prominent truth we will call the attention of the reader 
is that in all civilized governments there are certain properties con- 
sisting of the land, the money and public highways of communica- 
tion and commerce, that are recognized as governmental properties: 
that these properties embody all the elements of wealth and political 
power: and that they are universally found in the ownership and 



control of the sovereign or ruling person or class. So it is that in 
absolute monarchies these properties are recognized as sovereign 
properties belonging to the King, legally and popularly known as 
the King's land, the King's money, and the King's highways, and 
history demonstrates the fact that so long as the Kings are, or have 
been, permitted to monopolize the ownership and control of these 
properties they can and do exercise the power of absolute sov- 
ereignty. The fact is also well attested by history that whenever, 
by whatever means, monarchs have been deprived of the absolute 
ownership and control of these properties their sovereignty has 
been limited or destroyed, and universally passes into the hands 
of those who may have acquired them. So it is that in the limited 
monarchies now existing in Europe the ownership and control of these 
properties having been wrested from the Kings by their Dukes. 
Earls, Lords and Barons, they are no longer absolute sovereigns, and 
though nominally recognized as Kings, the} T are, in fact, but mere 
'•puppets* " or -'figure heads," constrained to execute the laws or 
decrees of the so-called nobles and favored classes who now monop- 
olize them, or permit them to be executed in their names; while the 
great mass of the people being disinherited and deprived of their 
natural equal rights in these properties are as completely impover- 
ished and enslaved under the governments of these aristocrats or 
oligarchs as formerly under their absolute sovereigns. So inexora- 
ble is the power of a monopoly, of these properties which embody 
all the necessities of life and existence that it may be affirmed as a 
universal truth, without an exception in the history of nations, 
that whoever, (any one or class of citizens) by whatever means, 
whether by brute force with sword and spear, as usually practiced in 
the establishment of monarchies, or through the forms of uncon- 
stitutional laws as practiced by the legislators and public servants of 
the people in Republics, can or may acquire a recognized ownership 
and control of these properties, thoreby acquires the essential ele- 
ments of sovereignty and the power of enslaving the people for their 
use in the support of life and existence. For, thus, holding, as it 
>were, the power of life and death through a monopoly of the means 
by which men live, their will becomes dominant over the will and 
actions of the people to the extent of their monopoly, and when 
centered in a single person his will becomes absolute as in absolute 
monarchies. Thus it is that one man is constrained to labor for 
another, often against his will, for a mere pittance scarcely sufficient 
to support life; and, also, enables one man to say to another. -(Jo. 
and he goeth: to another come, and he cometh; to another do this, 
and he doeth it." Yea. so inexorable is this power that it often 
constrains men to arm themselves in the service of traitors and aid 
them in overthrowing their governments. And thus Republics 
have often been destroyed. 

Thus, we have, in a few brief sentences, exposed to view the 
fountains and sources of monarchy. — a monopoly of the land, the 
money, and public highways of communication and commerce — and 



the methods by which they are acquired are the insidious means 
through which the spirit of monarch}' prevails in undermining and 
destroying Republicanism. It is accomplished simply by wresting 
from the people by violence, or through the forms of law, their 
natural, equal rights in their lands, their money and public high- 
ways and enslaving them for their use. We now witness the effects 
of these methods in our government, and, unless soon arrested, must 
inevitably result in anarchy and a bloody revolution repeating the 
history of past ages. And we here affirm that, according to histori- 
cal records and teachings, nearly all the bloody wars and revolutions 
in ancient and modern times, with nearly all the black budget of 
crimes that stain the records of humanity, have had their origin, di- 
rectly or indirectly, in robberies of the people of their natural rights 
in these national or common properties, or in their efforts to recover 
them, or in struggles between the robbers themselves for the owner- 
ship and control, of them as a basis of sovereingty. and as a means 
of w r resting from the disinherted and industrial millions a great share 
of the products and profits of their daily labor for the use of these 
properties. It is plainly manifest, therefore that if the people in 
our government would secure their sovereignty and liberties they 
must resume the ownership, control and usufructs in their national 
or common properties, and by constitutional amendments forever 
limit and restrain their legislators and public servants from robbing 
them of them and transferring them to corporations and favored 
classes. 



REPUBLICANISM— ITS PRINCIPLES. 



CHAPTER II. 

Wise and good men in every age of the world observing the 
unholy ambition of men to rule over and enslave their fellow men; 
and that, a monopoly of the ownership and control of the land, the 
money and public highways of a country constitute the principal 
means by which they are enabled to accomplish their devilish pur- 
pose, have ever sought to construct a system or constitution of gov- 
ernment that would prevent the acquisition of a monopoly of these 
properties by one man or the few. Hence Republics have been 
established, laying their foundations in the sovereignty of the people 
and their equal rights in these national or common properties. 
And, hence, also, our fathers boldly proclaiming the equal rights of 
all men. and revolting against the tyranny of Kings. Lords, Barons 
and other favored classes, holding monopolies of these properties 
and oppressing the people for their use. -ordained and established" 
our existing constitution of government, recognizing the will of the 
people, as therein expressed, as the supreme authority and their 
equal rights in these properties as common properties, and entrusting 
their administration and equal distribution among the people, and 



8 

protection to their persons and property rights to legislators and 
other public servants to be selected by a majority of the people, and 
solemnl}' sworn to perform these duties. These constitute the fun- 
damental principles of our government and the objects for which it 
was created. But, alas ! by not more definitely limiting and 
restraining the powers of our legislators and public servants in the 
administration and distribution of their common properties, they 
have, regardless of their oaths to support the constitution and to 
maintain the sovereigittry, equal rights and liberties of the people, rob- 
bed and plundered them of their equal rights in these properties and 
transferred them in vast amounts and unequal shares and benefits to 
corporations and favored classes, which now holding a monopoly of 
them, are impoverishing and enslaving the people for their use. 
precisely as do the Lords. Barons and other favored classes in 
monarchies. To restore to the disinherited millions their equal 
rights in these properties, and to restrain our treasonable legislators 
and public servants from hereafter plundering them of their equal 
rights therein by constitutional amendments, too strong to be 
broken, is the great political problem of the present and the 
future. 

To suggest legal and peaceful measures by which this may be 
accomplished for the common benefit, and without doing any real 
injury to any class of our fellow citizens; to aid in restoring man to 
his allegiance to his great creator, and a recognition of a common 
brotherhood of equal rights in all that he has created for the com- 
mon benefit, and in all the creations of their joint or co-operation 
power; to hasten the time when all men shall be allowed to enjoy the 
fruits of their labor under their own vine and fig tree, and none dare 
to molest or make them afraid; the time when the swords shall be 
beaten into plowshares and the spears into pruning hooks: the time 
when the people shall wrest from Satan and his minions the king- 
doms of the world and restore them to Him whose right it is 
to reign, and the time when the bloody dragon power of 
monarchy shall be forever chained is the great purpose of the author 
in writing this work. 



CHAPTER III. 

MONARCHY ITS ORGIN, CHARACTER AND METHODS OF WARFARE 

AGAINST REPUBLICANISM. 

According to Biblical history the Satanic spirit of monarchy was 
implanted in man in the garden of Kden in partaking of the forbidden 
fruit in violation of the Divine command on the suggestion and temp- 
tation of Satan in the disguise of a serpent. "Eat (said the tempter) 
* :; - * and ye shall be as (iods'" — Kings law makers and rulers 
instead of God. The same tempter that took Christ into a high 
mountain and showed Him the kingdoms of the world, and the 
glory of them, saying : -All these will I give you if you will fall 
down and worship me.'" if you will acknowledge me as your liege 



9 

Lord. We know not whether these records are literal or allegorical; 
nor is this knowledge necessary to our purpose; for we do know, 
both from Divine and profane history, that throughout all subse- 
quent ages of the world, in the wretched and dreadful struggle for 
dominion, every man's hand has been against his brother; and that 
the would-be Monarch or King, taking advantage of all favorable 
opportunities, seems to be restrained by no oaths, no obligation of 
trusts, no sympathies of a common brotherhood, and no humanity, 
but in his mad ambition for wealth, power and dominion, he unhesi- 
tatingly seizes the sword or other implements of war and pursues his 
purpose through bloody battle fields and over the bodies of the 
slain; and having thus beaten down all resistance he seizes upon the 
land, the control of the money and public highways and calls them 
his sovereign properties, and proceeds to distribute them out among 
his confederate robber chieftains whom he dubs Dukes, Earls, Lords, 
Barons, &c., as rewards for their services in making him King;, and 
upon the condition of maintaining his sovereignty and assumed 
prerogative rights over these properties. And these so-called nobles 
and other favored persons or classes, being thus invested with a 
quasi ownership and control of these properties are enabled to wrest 
from the disinherited and enslaved millions a great share of the 
products and profits of then labor through rents for land, interest for 
money, and tribute on their commerce ever the so-called King's 
highways. 

Such is the true picture of human Monarchy as exhibited in its 
violent or bloody character in all ages of the w^orld; and in this char- 
acter was correctly photographed in the Apochalypse by the Divine 
Artist himself under the symbol of a "great red dragon.'' 

But these are not the only methods through which the Santanic 
spirit of. Monarchy succeeds in destroying Republican governments 
and the equal rights and liberties of the people. For, whenever or 
wherever in the history of the world the people have succeeded in 
organizing Republican governments, recognizing the sovereignty of the 
people and their equal rights in their national or Common properties, 
it sends forth its tools and emissaries in various disguises, and even 
as Satan disguised as a serpent invaded the garden of Eden to 
deceive and rob our first parents of their happy home, so these, too, 
sometimes even assuming the names of Democrats and Republicans, 
have invaded the domains of the people, and. having by false prom- 
ises and deceitful pretenses, gained the confidence of the people and 
secured appointments as their legislators and public servants, and 
thus gained admission into their halls of legislation, then, utterly 
regardless of their promises and pledges to the people, and of their 
oaths to support their constitution and maintain their sovereignt}', 
equal rights and liberties, enter into combinations and conspiracies 
for robbing them of their common properties; and, under the plan, 
it may be, of "division and silence," transferring them to corpora- 
tions and favored classes through the forms of so-called law. And 
these favored classes, being thus invested with the ownership and 



10 

control of these properties, are enabled to wrest from the disin- 
herited millions a great share of the products of their daily 
labor for the use of these properties, creating millionaires and 
impoverishing the mam T for the benefit of the few. Thus 
the great fundamental principles of Republicanism, recognizing 
a common brotherhood of equal rights and an equal inheritance in 
their common properties being destnyyed, brother is soon arrayed 
against brother, and class against class, and eventually these unjust 
and treasonable laws, losing the respect of the oppressed and 
enslaved millions, combinations began to be formed to resist the power 
of their oppressors, generally ending in anarchy and violence. Then 
some military chieftain steps forth, supported by mercenary armies 
and proclaims or causes himself to be proclaimed King; and, so, the 
Republic is destroyed. This is a true statement of the methods 
through which the Satanic spirit of Monarch}' undermines and des- 
troys Republicanism through the operation of treasonable and uncon- 
stitutional laws, and the establishment of Monarchies on their ruins. 
It was thus the great Republics of ancient Greece and Rome were 
destroyed; thus their great millionaires were created: and thus, when 
the disinherited, impoverished and enslaved millions, driven to des- 
peration under the ever increasing exactions of the monopolistic classes, 
began to form associations to resist their tyranny ; then it was that 
these wealthy millionaires, in order to secure their spoils, hired 
mercenary armies to slaughter the people, destroy their Republics 
and set up Monarchies in their stead. This may be stated as the 
well known political highwa}* of the decline and fall of Republics. 

And, alas ! how perfectly similar in all, save the bloody tragedy to 
be played in the future, perhaps, in an endeaver to secure the 
spoils, and perpetually enslave the people, have been the meth- 
ods of their national public servants (and followed by their State 
legislatures to the extent of their jurisdiction) in plundering the 
people of their equal rights in their land, their money and public 
highways, and transferring them to co-porations and favored classes. 
their unconstitutional laws enacted for the purpose will ever stand 
until repealed, a black monument of their treason. Disregarding 
their oaths to support the Constitution, ordained and established by 
the fathers to secure the blessings of liberty to themselves and 
posterity forever, they have, without a shadow of constitutional 
authority, usurped the power of creating banking, railway and other 
corporations, and contrary to the fundamental principles of Repub- 
licanism, plundered the people of their national or common proper- 
ties; and, after the manner of Kings in the feudal ages of the world 
in granting these properties to their feudal lords, have transferred 
them in vast amounts and unequal shares and benefits to tl 
ill igitimate, bastard corporations; and which, now holding a monop- 
oly of them, are enabled to wrest from the disinherited laboring and 
producing millions a great share of the profits of their labor for 
their use, precisely as do the so-called nobles and favored clases in 
Monarchies. And we here and now affirm that no military chief- 



11 

tain or bloody Monarch in ancient or modern times with sword and 
spear, has ever robbed the people of any nation more successfully, 
and in few instances more extensively, than have our treasonable 
legislators and public servants through the forms of unconstitu- 
tional laws: and that, so far as robbery constitutes communism, we 
affirm that our legislators and public servants, with the receivers of 
the stolen properties, may claim pre-eminence over the Kings of the 
earth and their confederate robbers; and that, together, they consti- 
tute the worst communists that have ever prayed on the property 
rights of mankind. And we further affirm that any Congress or 
State legislature, whether disguised as Republicans. Democrats or 
otherwise, using such powers, do but exhibit themselves as a hydra- 
headed monarchical dragon power, restrained by no sense of justice, 
no obligation of trust, no regard for the equal rights of citizens, no 
sympathies of a common brotherhood, and no humanity; but. 
oblivious to all. set themselves up as supreme and plunder the peo- 
ple of their property rights as remorselessly as any Monarch in 
Christendom. And in these methods they might even claim to be 
peers with Saten himself in his methods in the garden of Eden, in 
seducing our first parents from their allegiance to God and usurping 
His rightful soverereignty over the children of His creation and the 
works of His hands. 

Dear reader, we know these are hard sayings, but the}* are simple 
truths, well attested by the legislative history of our country. Much 
of it. perhaps, has been done in ignorance, not securing the ultimate 
results. We state them thus plainly that those who may have 
ignoranth* aided in these great crimes may realize their enormity. 
and purchance. render aid in averting the consequences of their 
great errors; but. chiefly, that the people, clearly comprehending the 
methods by which the tools and emissaries of Monarchy are under- 
mining and destroying our government and reducing them to vas- 
salage and slavery to corporations and favored classes, may be 
stimulated to unite their voices in the election of public servants who 
will repeal these robber laws and restore these properties to the 
people. And, inasmuch as their treasonable public servants pretend 
to claim constitutional authority for thus plundering them of these 
properties, to show the absolute necessity of so amending their con- 
stitutions as to forever prohibit and restrain them from robbing 
them of these properties in the future. 



CHAPTER IV. 

OUR CONSTITUTION DOES NOT DELEGATE SUCH AUTHORITY. BUT NEEDS 

AMENDMENTS MORE CLEALY DEFINING AND LIMITING THE 

POWERS DELEGATED. 

If there is any political truth more clearly demonstrated by history 
than any other, it is that no man nor set of men. can be entrusted 
with discretionary power (which is sovereign power) in the admin- 
istration and distribution of the land, the money and public high- 



12 

ways of a country, which embody the principal elements of all 
wealth, sovereignty and political power in all nations. Kings seize 
and appropriate them for the perpetuation of their power and the 
enslavement of the people for their use. Aristocrats or Obligarcs 
seize and appropriate them for like purposes. And our own public 
servants, entrusted with them, under the most solemn obligations 
to distribute them among the people in equal shares or benefits, and 
to protect them in their use, have, in violation of their oaths and 
trusts transferred them in vast amounts and unequal shares and 
benefits to individuals and corporations, which, now holding monop- 
olies of them, are enslaving the disinherited industrial and produc- 
ing classes for their use, precisely as in Monarchies or Oligarchies. 
And this shows the absolute necessity of more clearly defining and 
limiting their powers in the administration and distribution of these 
properties, as demanded in the sovereign people's platform and the 
constitutional amendment hereinafter set forth. 

But we most emphatically deny that our Constitution as it exists. 
when properly interpreted, gives any authority for the usurpations 
and perversions of the powers as exercised by our public servants : 
and this we propose to show as briefly as possible. 

For the purpose of this exposition we will here present the several 
provisions of the Constitution delegating powers to Congress respect- 
ing these properties, and then proceed to give them a rational inter- 
pretation consistent with the intent and purposes for which the powers 
were delegated, and expose the methods by which they have been 
abused, perverted and prostituted. 

Part of section VIII. of article I. delegates power to Congress — 

'•To coin money, regulate the value thereof and of foreign coins." 

Another clause of the same section and article delegates power to 
Congress — 

•*To borrow money on the credit of the United States." 

And section 3 of article IV. declares : 

" The Congress shall have power to dispose of and make all need- 
ful rules and regulations respecting the territory and other properties 
belonging to the United States" — to the people constituting the Grov- 
ernment of the United States, of course. 

As the creation of corporations is closely identified with the ques 
tion of constitutionality, being the principal receivers and beneficia- 
ries of the properties which we allege to have been wrested from 
the people and transferred to them without constitutional authority, 
we will first consider the constitutionality of these acts. But, really, 
then' is nothing to consider ; tor we aver that there is not a word or 
sentence in the whole Constitution that, by any rational inference or 
implication, can be construed to make such a grant of power. We 
therefore feel justified in declaring that all acts of Congress creating 
corporations, of any class or character, are gross usurpations of power 
not delegated, involving absolute perjury. But, besides that, there is 
no grant of such power, directly or indirectlv ; we are also advised 
b\ the history of the proceedings of the convention that framed our 



13 

Constitution, that when a proposition was made to delegate power to 
create corporations for national purposes it was largely voted down. 
This fact is conclusive that no such power was delegated, nor intended 
to be delegated. And yet a Supreme Court of the United States, 
while reciting this fact, have decided that Congress has the power to 
do so. Comment is unnecessary. 

: In relation to the meaning and intent of the powers delegated "To 
coin money;" " To borrow money," " To dispose of the territory," &c, 
which we have recited, it is universally admitted by all jurists and 
learned men that where any doubt arises as to the true meaning of 
any provision of law, it must be interpreted in harmony with the 
intention of the lawgiver and the purpose had in view. In these 
cases there can be no doubt of the intention and purposes of the law- 
giver — the States and people — in making these grants of power, viz.. 
that of maintaining the sovereignty, equal rights and liberties of the 
people forever, as against the tyranny of Kings, Aristocrats and 
favored classes holding monopolies of these properties and enslaving 
the people for their use. 

» As these principles of interpretation are admitted, we will proceed 
to examine the true meaning of these several grants of power. And 
first, the power .'* to dispose of * * * the territory and other prop- 
erties," &c. inasmuch as this is claimed by our legislators and public 
servants, and the receivers of these properties, as authority for trans- 
ferring the ownership and control of them to such corporations and 
favored classes. Is this manner of the disposition of these properties 
consistent with the intention and purposes for which this grant of 
power was made by the founders of our government? Everyman 
of common sense will at once perceive that it is not. But does the 
literal meaning of the word "dispose." or the term "to dispose of," 
authorize such use of this power? We aver that it does not, and 
will refer the reader to Mr. Webster's unabridged dictionary for the 
proof. Mr. Webster gives the meaning of the word " dispose." as a 
verb — equivalent to the term "to dispose of " — as follows : 

1st. To distribute and put in place; to arrange; to put in order. 

2d. To regulate; to fix; to adjust; to order; to determine. 

3d. TO deal out; to assign to; to bestow for an object or purpose. 

4th. To give a tendency to (relating to the mind). 

5th. " To bargain; to make terms." 

This last is the only definition that could be interpreted to mean a 
power ,to sell or alienate these properties, but this meaning Mr. Web- 
ster declares to be '-obsolete." All these meanings, and especially 
the first and leading, indicates a partition or distribution according 
to some recognized rule ; and when it is considered that by the funda- 
mental principles of our government these properties belong to the 
people as common properties,, there can be no question that the power 
■■to dispose of the territory and other properties " was intended sim- 
ply as a power in trust to divide and distribute them among the people 
according to their sovereign, inherent and equal rights therein, as in- 
rdicated.both by the. literal meaning of the terms of the grant and the 
purposes for which the grants were made. The abuse of this power 
by Congress is simply treason — a robbery of the people of their sov- 



14 

ereign properties ; undermining and destroying their equal rights,, 
sovereign t}~ and liberties, and reducing them to vassalage and slavery 
to corporations and favored classes. 

To make this more manifest, if possible, let us suppose that our 
public servants in Congress, in their assumed or usurped discretionary 
power, were to create a corporation composed of the Queen of Great 
Britain, the Czar of Russia, the Emperor of Germany and the Pope 
of Rome, and transfer to them the ownership and control of the land, 
the money and public highwaj^s of the people of our government. 
Would not the people soon discover the act to be high treason, and 
hang them as high as Haman ? And yet they have as much power 
to do this as they have to transfer the control and usufructs of these 
properties to our existing banking, railway and telegraphic corpora- 
tions. 

While we think we have refuted all claims to constitutional author- 
ity in relation to these acts, yet these tools and emissaries of Mon- 
arch}* — these usurpers of the sovereign prerogatives and properties 
of the people — are never without some argument, however groundless, 
to deceive and hold the people in slavery. And hence they assume 
that these several grants of power invests Congress with the whole 
sovereign power of the people over these properties, and that their 
public servants in Congress may constitutionally exercise all the 
power over them commonly exercised by other sovereigns, subject to 
no limitations save their own discretion. This argument is very often 
used, only slightly modified, and is substantially the argument of the 
Supreme Court of the United States in the case of Juliard vs. Green- 
man, decided in 1884. In that decision even the provisions of the 
tenth amendment declaring that " the powers not delegated to the 
United States (to Congress) by this Constitution * * * are reserved 
to the people," is swept away in one short sentence. And instead of 
deciding that the power to give legal tender functions to paper was 
inherent in the power to make or coin money, decided it upon this 
monstrous assumption of discretionary power, as exercised by other 
sovereigns! And, to illustrate this monstrous dogma, traveling out 
of the record and the question raised in the case, while admitting 
that when a proposition was made to the convention which framed 
our Constitution, to delegate power to Congress to create corpora- 
tions for national purposes was refused and largely voted down, yet 
endorsed former decisions of the court that Congress had the power. 
And so the public servants of the people, panoplied with the concur- 
rence of our highest courts and executive officers, with the instincts 
and characteristics of the dragon power of Monarchy, rob and plun- 
der the people of their common or sovereign properties as remorse- 
lessly as any Monarch in Christendom. Such decisions must be 
reversed by the sovereign people ; and if they hope or desire to main 
tain their sovereignty, equal rights and liberties, they must resume 
the ownership and control of their common properties and their equal 
rights therein, and effectually limit and restrain their legislators and 
public servants from robbing them of them. 



15 



CHAPTER V. 
OUR PUBLIC LANDS. 

A NATIONAL OR COMMON PROPERTY BELONGING TO THE SOVEREIGN PEO- 
PLE IN EQUAL SHARES AND BENEFITS BY THE CREATION AND 
GIFT OF GOD. BY RIGHT OF SOVEREIGNTY AND THE FUNDA- 
MENTAL PRINCIPLES OF OUR GOVERNMENT. 

In relation to this property, our legislators and public servants, as- 
suming or usurping the power to give, grant and alienate them at 
discretion, like other absolute sovereigns, instead of distributing them 
among the people according to their equal rights therein, have robbed 
them and transferred them by hundreds of millions of acres to rail- 
way and other corporations which they have created without a shadow 
of constitutional authority, and which are now reducing the industrial 
classes to vassalage and slaver}' for their use. They have even per- 
mitted alien enemies, owing no allegiance to our own government, to 
monopolize vast amounts of our public and private lands, and who 
are now levying tribute on our citizens for their use. like the feudal 
lords in Monarchies. 

o 



CHAPTER VI. 
OUR MONEY. 

MONEY IS A SOVEREIGN PROPERTY WHICH BELONGS TO THE SOVEREIGN 

PEOPLE WHO CREATE IT, OR PROVIDE FOR ITS CREATION, WITH 

ALL THE BENEFITS AND USUFRUCTS ARISING FROM ITS 

CREATION AND ISSUE. 

The sovereign people of the United States have delegated power 
to Congress — 

" To coin money, regulate the value thereof and of foreign coins." 

We now propose to examine the nature and extent of this power ; 
why or for what purpose money is created or coined ; what gives 
value to money ; why this power was delegated to Congress ; and 
how Congress has executed, or rather perverted, this high trust. 

In considering the nature and extent of this power it is a matter of 
first importance to understand 

WHAT IS MONEY. 

As to what money really is, we here present two definitions in as 
few words as possible to convey a clear conception. 

First. Money is any convenient and suitable substance or material 
which, when properly prepared for use as money, is invested by the 
law or decree of the sovereign authority providing for its creation 
with the functions of legal tender in the payment of all taxes and 
debts, public and private, in the jurisdiction of the sovereign power 
creating it. 

Second. Money is a bill of credit issued by the authority of some 
sovereign power, with a promise that the government issuing it will 



•■..16 

receive It from any lawful holder at the value printed, stamped or 
impressed on its face in the payment of all taxes and debts due the 
government, and, by law (usually called the law of legal tender), re- 
quiring all citizens of such government to receive it for all debts due 
him, her or them by any other citizen or citizens. 

We are aware that the term mone}\ in common parlance, is often 
applied to mere currencies, representations of or substitutes for money, 
not possessing' any or only a part of the real or legal tender func- 
tions of money. This is an improper use of the term money. We 
insist that any material to be money must be endowed by law with 
all the functions of . legal tender in the payment of all taxes and 
debts, public and private. 

As to the value of money — bills of credit — -thus endowed with the 
functions of legal tender, it matters not whether they be printed or 
engraved on paper, not costing one cent, or whether they be stamped 
on pieces of gold or- silver costing ninety or a hundred cents to the 
dollar, they are equally valuable as money. They are simply the 
highest form of credit, endorsed, as it were, by every citizen of the 
government — all, by the law of legal tender, being' bound for their 
redemption. In view of these facts, attested by experience. 'it may 
be pertinently asked : Why. then, do our legislators and public serv- 
ants pay ninety or a hundred cents for gold 'or silver bullion to issue 
bills of credit upon ? There is absolutely no other answer to this 
question than that they are either fools or knaves. And, to illustrate 
•the; -truth of such answer, it is only necessary to observe that if -a. citi- 
zen in his private business were to pay ninety or a hundred cents for 
anv material to write his note or bill of credit upon. .when, he could 
write it upon a piece of paper which would not cost him one cent, he 
would be regarded as a. lunatic and probably be eonfiued in a .lunatic 
asylum. And many of our so-called -great statesmen " and •• finan- 
ciers '," should be treated in like manner, or hanged as knaves as high 
as Hainan was. 

The. purpose of making or coining money- — equivalent terms when 
used in relation to this grant of power — grows,, out of the imperious 
necessity of mankind, when associated in governments, for the use of 
some token or thing, convenient and portable, possessing exchangea- 
ble value, to cna|)i e them to pay their debts and taxes and exchange 
property without the actual delivery of other property of equal value. 
This token — bill of credit — money" — is created by law. and when 
endowed with all the functions of legal tender becomes universally 
valuable in exchange for all property : and. when honestly created 
and issued for the common benefit, is probably the greatest and most 
[.useful invention that has ever been created by man ; hut when -per- 
verted by the creation of substitutes for private or corporate benefit, 
as has been done by our legislators and public servants, is prol>aU\ 
the greatest curse. ! 

We will now proceed to show, as relating to our government, why 
the power to make or coin money was delegated to Congress.'- The 
first great object was to procure a sufficiency of money - -paper money 



17 

or paper bills of credit, as you please — of equal value with, and to 
supplement the inadequate amount of, gold and silver coins to supply 
the necessities of the people for the payment of debts and taxes and 
the exchanges of commerce throughout the States then endeavoring 
to form our federal or national government as now existing under 
our Constitution. This it was impossible to do without the States 
surrendering a portion of their sovereignty then exercised by them. 
Among other powers necessary to be surrendered was that of issuing 
bills of credit or making paper money. Many of the States were 
then and had long been exercising this power (an attribute of sover- 
eignty) : but because no State or Nation can give legal tender funcr- 
tions valid in any other State or Nation, hence the money of no State 
was money in any other State, and. therefore, the money of each 
State was subject to ruinous discounts in all other States, causing 
great loss to the people, and seriously embarrassing trade and com- 
merce between the States. This was the financial condition at the 
time of the adoption of the Constitution ; and. in order to remedy 
this evil, the States consented to surrender the power of issuing bills 
of credit or giving legal tender functions to paper which could only 
be money in their several jurisdictions, and delegated the power to 
Congress, in order that Congress, being thus invested with the power 
of all the States, might be enabled to give legal tender functions to 
paper valid throughout all the States. It is manifest that the power 
surrendered by the States was the power of issuing bills of credit or 
making money of paper. It is also equally manifest that the power 
delegated to Congress was. mainly and primarily, the power to make 
money of paper — money alone — invested with all the legal tender 
functions of money, and not any mere currency or hybred substitute 
for money, deprived of a part of the functions and uses of money. 
Such creations are not money, in a true constitutional sense, nor in 
common sense, no more than a wagon deprived of a part of its wheels 
would be a wagon. 

Having thus shown what money is. how and for what purposes 
money is made or coined, and why this power was delegated to Con- 
gress, so plainly, we apprehend, that no man of common sense could 
scarcely be deceived, we will now proceed to show how our national 
legislators and public servants, by treasonable usurpations of power 
not delegated, have so perverted and prostituted this sacred trust as 
to make it a means of robbing the people and enslaving them to cor- 
porations and favored persons and classes. 

The first notable fact is that they have persistently refused to exe- 
cute this most important trust and power to the extent and in manner 
and form for the purposes for which the power was delegated, viz.. 
of making or coining a sufficient amount of paper money of uniform 
value with gold and silver coins, and to supplement the inadequate 
amount thereof, to supply the necessities of the people for the pay- 
ment of labor, debts and taxes and the exchanges of commerce. And 
we now assert that this, in connection with, and as auxiliary to. the 
power of making money of gold and silver, is the identical, specific 



18 

and limited power delegated to Congress. It is these functions of 
legal tender (not a part, but all of them,) which make money of any 
material ; and no material, not even gold and silver coins, becomes 
money until these legal tender functions are conferred upon them by 
law. Hence, we might mint or stamp all the gold and silver in the 
world with the insignia or legends of money and yet not have a dol- 
lar in money ; and so we might print or engrave all the paper in the 
world in the form of money, without investing it with the functions 
of legal tender, and yet not have a dollar in paper money ; but having 
thus suitably prepared any one or all of these materials for use as 
money, then the law or decree of the sovereign power conferring* 
upon the material or materials so prepared the functions of legal 
tender in the payment of all taxes and debts, public and private, 
makes them money, and, as such, will be of uniform value for all 
purposes for which money is used. If proof were necessary we have 
only to refer to the demand notes which remained equal with gold 
and silver coins throughout the war. and also to our present green- 
back money, which immediately rose to par the moment John Sher- 
man, even without the authority of law, ordered them to be received 
in the payment of " import duties and interest on the public debt.*" 
which practically made them a full legal tender. 

The foregoing truths are so well known by every intelligent man 
we submit them as conclusive without any theoretical argument. 

But how have our legislators and public servants used this high 
trust and power? Instead of creating a full legal tender paper 
money of uniform value with gold and silver money, and to supple- 
ment the inadequate amount thereof, to supply the necessities of the 
people for the payment of labor, debts and taxes and the exchanges 
of commerce — the true intent and purposes for which the power was 
delegated — and, instead of issuing this money for the common benefit 
direct from the treasury of the people, assuming and usurping powers 
not delegated, they have created banking corporations, without a 
shadow of constitutional authority, and have perverted and prosti- 
tuted the power to make money of pamper by the creation of hundreds 
of millions of dollars of national bank notes — a paper substitute for 
nione}' totally unknown to the Constitution and unauthorized by it — 
which they have donated and transferred to these illegitimate, bastard 
corporations with the power and profits of issue : they have author- 
ized these Corporations to loan or issue these substitutes for money 
to the people at high and ruinous rates of interest, and. through 
agents, to take mortgages on their most valuable properties to secure 
payment in lawful money, and permitted the courts of the country to 
enforce them as lawful contracts ; they have exempted these substi- 
tutes for money from all taxation, thus increasing the burdens of the 
people : they have empowered these corporations to contract or ex- 
pand the volume of these substitutes for money at discretion, thereby 
enabling them to control the value of property and the wages of 
labor for speculative purposes ; they have chartered thousands of 
these corporations and located them in all parts of the country, with 



%9. 

the power to plunder the people of interest or usury ; they have even 
permitted alien enemies — the companies and syndicates of European 
Monarchies, glutted with the spoils of the impoverished laboring and 
producing classes of those countries and the isles of the sea by like 
methods, to establish agencies throughout our country advertising 
•• Money to Loan."* like ravens croaking for their pre}'. Whither 
are we drifting ? Look to your ballots. 0. ye oppressed and enslaved 
people ! 

But these are only a part of the method through which, for more 
than twenty-five years, our treasonable legislators and public servants 
have been robbing, oppressing and enslaving the people through their 
usurpations and perversions of power to coin money. They have 
created thousands of millions of dollars of another substitute for 
money — the old greenback currency— and instead of making; it a 
legal tender in the payment of all taxes and debts, public and private, 
they, with the wicked and felonious intent of causing its deprecia- 
tion, deprived it of the functions of paying -import duties and inter- 
est on the public debt": and when, by this means, it had been 
depreciated to less than fifty cents on the dollar, thus nearly doubling 
the expenses of the war. then, by their Satanic funding and re-fund- 
ing laws tempted the wealthy bankers, speculators and money changers 
to buy it up at less than half price and fund it into interest-bearing 
bonds, at par. freed from all taxation. Thus the people were robbed 
of about fourteen hundred millions of dollars by depreciation alone, 
which was an absolute gift in the bonds of the people to these bankers 
and other usurers, and which, with the interest already accrued, 
amounts to three thousand millions of dollars. Reader, these are the 
foundation for our interest-bearing national debt. It is based on a 
robbery of the people of this currency through the forms of law, and 
which, although unconstitutionally created through the usurpations 
and perjury of your public servants, yet as a substitute for money, 
such as it was, was an obsolute necessity in the channels of trade 
and commerce ; but by reason of their refusal to make it a full legal 
tender, as their oaths to support the Constitution and to legislate for 
the general welfare required them to do. it was depreciated ; and 
there never was an hour during or since the war that a law of ten 
lines or less, making it a legal tender in the payment of all taxes and 
debts, public and private, would instantly have restored it to par with 
gold and silver coins, like the demand notes, and like it is at present, 
Then all this grand legal robbery, and all this infamous debt, and all 
the billions of interest and principal paid on it and the billions yet to 
be paid, would have been saved to the people, besides all the conse- 
quential damages, resulting from the destruction of this currency, 
that swept over the country from 1873 to 1878 by depriving the 
mercantile, manufacturing, farming and industrial classes of the 
means of paying their debts and taxes. During this short period 
more than forty thousand merchants were forced into bankruptcy 
occasioned by the destruction of this currency converted into bonds ; 
nearly all manufactories were shut up or forced into bankruptcy : 



20 

farmers could not sell their products to pay for labor, debts and taxes : 
more than a million of men were discharged from labor and tramped 
over the country seeking employment but finding none ; and a uni- 
versal gloom overspread the land like the black pall of death. Then 
it was that the bankers and other usurers to whom bonds were given 
in exchange for this currency, and holding a monopoly of gold, silver 
and bank note currency, emerged from their dens of usury and began 
to foreclose their mortgages ; the goods of bankrupt merchants were 
sold for a pittence ; more than a hundred thousand happy homes 
passed into the hands of bankers and other usurers, while the wails 
of thousand of starving women and children were often heard. 

Reader, will you say that we have overdrawn this frightful picture ? 
It is not so. The half is not told, and no pen of man nor angel can 
ever fully disclose the horrid reality. 

And all — all ! because our legislators and public servants refused 
to confer the functions of legal tender on this currency, instead of 
robbing the people of it by converting it into an interest-bearing na- 
tional debt for the benefit of bankers and usurers. 

Was it a mistake ? Was it done in ignorance ? No. no ! It was 
done in the execution of a deep-laid conspiracy between the minions 
of European Monarchy and our own bankers and public servants to 
enslave the people through the control of money. This devilish con- 
spiracy is clearly outlined in the infamous 

HAZARD CIRCULAR, 

-confidentially * addressed to the bankers and capitalists of our 
country. It said : 

•' The confederacy is likely to be overthown by the war power and 
(chattel) slavery destroyed.'* 

"This I and my European friends are in favor of. for (chattel) 
slavery is but the ownership of labor, and carries with it the care 
for the laborers ; while the European plan, led on by England, is 
capital control of labor by controlling wages. This can be done by 
controlling the money." 

••The great debt that capitalists will see to is made out of the war 
must be used as a measure to control the volume of money." 

•• To accomplish this the bonds must be used as a banking basis. 
We are waiting to get the Secretary of the Treasury to make the rec- 
ommendation to Congress." 

•• It will not do allow the greenbacks to circulate any length of 
time, for we cannot control them."' 

We here present the outlines of the great conspiracy of the tools 
and emissaries of .Monarchy for enslaving the disinherited laboring 
and producing classes of our country through the control of money: 
The history of the financial legislation of our country, only a pari of 
which we have detailed, shows how well and faithfully our treason 
able legislators and public servants, with the instincts of the dragon 
power of Monarchy, have executed its behests. We doubt if Satan 
himself could Improve upon them. 



21 

But let us further briefly glance at subsequent Legislation tending 
to further enslave labor through the control of money. In 1869 the 
bonds then existing, chiefly payable after five years in any lawful 
money, was falsely declared by the so-called -credit strengthening" 
act. to be payable in coin, and in 1870, and subsequently, this false- 
hood was made monumental in the fraudulent re-funding laws by 
which new bonds were issued in lieu of the old. and made payable in 
gold and silver coins nine-tenths line after fifteen, twenty-five and 
thirty-five years. In 1873 silver was slyly and fraudulently demone- 
tized, leaving only gold for the payment of the new bonds. In 1875 
the so-called resumption act was passed having in view the final de- 
struction of the greenbacks which the conspirators could not control ; 
but the would-be destroyers — your faithless public servants — could 
not -screw up their courage to the sticking point •" : and in 1878. 
quailing beneath the frowns of an outraged people, were compelled 
to desist in their wicked purpose and stop their destruction ; and in 
1879 the exigencies of the resumption act — the weapon whetted and 
prepared for their destruction — compelled the notorious John Sher- 
man, then Secretary of the Treasury, without even the authority of 
law. to order that they should be received in the payment of •• import 
duties and interest on the public debt." which practically made them 
a legal tender in the payment of all taxes and debts, public and pri- 
vate : and since which time, crowned with honor, they ride trium- 
phant over both gold and silver coins — the idol of fools and the tool 
of knaves. 

But. reader, the bankers, bondholders, speculators and usurers of 
every class have ever sought to accomplish their destruction, for they 
cannot control them, as the Hazard circular says. And while they 
exist the}' do not deem their dominion complete over land, over money, 
over labor, over commerce and over the liberties of the people : and 
so. ever since, by some inscrutable means, they have secured the rec- 
ommendations of your highest executive officers in some form, urging 
this act of treason. But they (your national legislators), fearing 
your indignation, have as yet refused to strike the murderous blow. 
But although they fear to do this, yet their law r s through which you 
are plundered of hundreds of millions of dollars by onerous taxation 
and hoarded in your national treasury stands unrepealed, and they 
seem to regard with indifference, if not approval, the acts of your 
executive public servants, who. under various false pretenses, instead 
of paying your bonded debt, are holding vast amounts of it in your 
national treasury : while, for the want of it in the channels of trade 
and commerce, your merchants, farmers and other industrial classes 
are being forced into bankruptcy and ruin. 

Fellow-citizens ! Your treasonable legislators and public servants 
are properly responsible for all these evils. You have given them no 
constitutional authority for the enactment of these treasonable robber 
laws. How long will you permit these tools and emissaries of Mon- 
archy to pollute your halls of legislation, rob you of your sovereignty 
and liberties and enslave you to corporations and favored classes ? 



oo 



You must unite in the election of public servants who will repeal 
these robber laws and restore to you your equal rights in your na- 
tional or common properties. 



CHAPTER VII 
OUR PUBLIC DEBT. 

The creation of interest-bearing public debts, to which we have 
incidentally alluded in the previous chapter under the head of "Our 
Money," is one of the insidious methods by which the Satanic spirit 
of Monarchy, through its tools and emissaries, prosecutes its warfare 
against the principles of true Republicanism and enslaves the man y 
for the benefit of the few. • This nefarious scheme or method was put- 
in operation b} T our legislators and public servants by perverting the 
power delegated to Congress — 

" To borrow money on the credit of the United States." 

With this preliminary statement we will now proceed to examine 
the nature and extent of this power ; the purposes for which the 
power was delegated ; the limitations to the power, if any : and how 
the power has been used and perverted. 

Apparently, but only apparently, it seems to be an unlimited power, 
which may be exercised by our legislators and public servants at dis- 
cretion. But discretionary power, vested in public servants, is 
utterly incompatible with the existence of a true Republican govern- 
ment under a written constitution. A constitution, in its true sense. 
is simply a power of attorney, as it were, executed by the sovereign 
people delegating power or authority to their public servants to do 
certain things for certain purposes. Hence, all grants of power. :is 
to their extent, must be interpreted in subordination to and in har- 
mony with the objects or purposes for which the power was dele 
gated. What, then, was the purpose for which the people delegated 
power to their agents or public servants to "borrow money"? and 
what are the limitations to this power, if any ? There can be no 
doubt that the purpose was. in the event of some great emergency, 
when all other resources failed, to enable Congress to provide for the 
common defence and maintain the sovereignty, equal rights and lib- 
erties of the people forever ; or. as the fathers expressed it. •• to secure 
the blessings of liberty to ourselves and posterity." these being the 
purposes for which all powers were delegated ; and. of course, the 
power to borrow money was and is limited to these cardinal or pri- 
mary purposes, and can. under no circumstances, be so used or per- 
verted as to enslave one class of the people for the benefit of another 
class. It is not only thus limited by general principles, but is other- 
wise limited by the literal meaning of the words used in the grant of 
the power to borrow money — money alone — and not any semblance of 
or substitute for money. 

And now the question arises, how and for what purposes have our 
legislators and public servants used this grant of power? We aver 
that, assuming and usurping the sovereign powers of the people not 



delegated, they have, with the criminal intent to wrong, defraud and 
enslave the people, created a semblance or substitute for money — the 
old greenback currency — deprived of a part of the functions of money, 
viz., of paying •• import duties and interest on the public debt"; and 
When from this cause it had been depreciated to less than half its 
nominal value, nearly doubling the cost of the war ; and when, before 
and after the close of the war, there was not a shadow of necessity 
for borrowing money, they provided by law for receiving this depre- 
ciated currency from wealthy bankers, speculators and money chang- 
ers as being money horrowed^ and for funding it. at par. into interest- 
bearing bonds freed from all taxation : and that afterwards, in their 
so-called '-credit strengthening' law of 1869, falsely declaring the 
bonds thus issued in exchange for this depreciated substitute for 
money were payable in coin, in 1870 and afterwards, by their several 
infamous re-funding laws, made this fulsehood monumental in our 
existing public debt by cancelling the old and issuing new bonds in 
their stead, made payable in gold and silver coins nine-tenths fine 
after fifteen, twenty-five and thirty-five years. We aver that this is 
a plain statement, without any exaggeration, of the methods through 
which our monstrous interest-bearing debt was created, and upon 
which our mercantile, farming and other industrial classes have paid 
more than five thousand millions of dollars, with billions more to be 
paid, and which our traitorous public servants, claiming to be Demo- 
crats and Republicans, have ever since denominated •• sacred coin 
contracts."' 

It had its origin, first, in a gross perversion of the power to coin 
money, as shown in our last chapter : and. second, in a prostitution 
of the power to borrow money, as herein stated. It was created to 
the extent of one-half or about fourteen hundred millions of dollars 
(being the amount of the depreciation of this currency), without any 
valuable consideration, and which was an absolute donation to these 
bankers and speculators in the bonds of the people. The thing bor- 
rowed, or pretended to be borrowed, was not money as authorized by 
the Constitution ; nor was it borrowed for the purposes for which 
the power was delegated. It is simply a black monument of crime 
based upon usurpations, treasons and perjuries, its column constructed 
of robberies and its capstone set in frauds. It is the outgrowth of 
the great conspiracy between the minions of European Monarchy and 
its tools and emissaries in our own country to plunder and enslave 
the people through the control of money. 

If the reader will turn back and read again the infamous 

HAZARD CIRCULAR, 

•confidentially** addressed to our bankers and capitalists, outlining 
this great conspiracy, he will at once realize how well our legislators 
and public servants have executed it, What shall be done with this 
debt ? (See the Sovereign People's Platform and Constitutional* 
Amendment.) 



24 



CHAPTER VIII. 

OUR PUBLIC HIGHWAYS. 

All railway and telegraphic lines of communication and commerce 
constitute a part of the national or common properties belonging to 
the sovereign people b} T the fundamental principles of Republicanism. 
But of these, too, with vast amounts of our public domain, money 
and credit, our treasonable legislators, through gross usurpations of 
powers not delegated or perversions of delegated power, have robbed 
the people, and transferred the control and usufructs thereof to cor- 
porations and favored classes. We will now examine by what au- 
thority and under what pretexts this has been done. 

Our Constitution provides in section 3 of article IV. that — 
u Congress shall have power to dispose of * * * the territory 
and other property belonging to the United States." 

To give a color of authority for their notorious abuse of this trust 
and power, our legislators have falsely assumed that the power "to 
dispose of " these properties invested them with the whole sovereign 
power of the people— to sell, give and alienate them at discretion. 
And so. in accordance with this monstrous assumption, insolently 
arrogating all the powers of absolute Monarchs, they have robbed 
the people of their public highways and transferred the ownership 
and control of this property to their bastard corporations which they 
have created without a shadow of constitutional authority. As we 
have hereinbefore shown that the power "to dispose of" these prop- 
erties confers no such absolute power as thus assumed, neither by the 
literal meaning of the term -^to dispose of" nor the purposes for 
which the power was delegated, we will not here repeat the argument. 
But the fact stands out in bold relief that our legislators and public 
servants, assuming and usurping absolute sovereign powers over the 
lands, the money and public highways, have transferred them to cor- 
porations and favored classes, and which, thus being invested with a 
monopoly of them, are wresting from the disinherited millions a great 
share of the products and profits of their labor for their use. precisely 
as do the lords, barons and favored classes in Monarchies. Ts this a 
Republic, except in name ? 

Under the operation of these unconstitutional robber laws more 
than one-half of the entire wealth of our country has been wrested 
from the people and transferred to these corporations and favored 
classes, mainly exempted from all taxation, while far the larger part 
of the remainder is under mortgage to these and other usurers. More 
than forty millions of our people have been disinherited of their (iod- 
given equal rights in their lands and other national properties, and 
become as aliens and outcasts in the land of their fathers, while far 
the larger part of the remainder yet permitted to occupy their homes 
under mortgages, are practically mere tenants at will, and being 
pressed down by onerous taxation and paying exorbitant interest to 
bankers and other usurers for the use of monev. and ruinous tribute 



25 

on their commerce to the monopolizers of their public highways, are 
fast sinking beneath their burdens and becoming mere " hewers of 
wood and drawers of water " to the monopolizers of their sovereign 
properties. Is this a Republic, recognizing the sovereignty, equal rights 
and liberties of the people — a refuge for the oppressed of all nations ? 
Nay, verily ! It has become an oligarchy of land lords, mone} T lords 
and lords of onr public highways, plundering the industrial and produc- 
ing classes of a great share of the profits of their labor ; while their 
legislators and public servants, having treasonably placed them in 
po wer, now casting aside all allegiance to the sovereign people, have 
become submissive tools in the enactment of laws to protect them in 
their so-called "vested rights" in these stolen properties. And, to 
crown their infamy, now, when the farming, laboring and other in- 
dustrial classes, slowly opening their eyes to their oppressed condi- 
tion, are beginning to form associations for resisting the oppressions 
of these millionaire monopolists, their insolent public servants joining 
their voices with the receivers of these stolen properties, denounce 
them as socialists and communists. It is absolutely amazing that 
these grand robbers of the people, who, through the forms of law 
within the short space of thirty years, have plundered them of more 
than one-half the wealth of our country — more than thirt}^ billions of 
dollars worth — -and who might successfully claim pre-eminence over 
the kings of the earth and their hireling hosts as to the success and 
extent of their robberies, should even dare to speak the word com- 
munist ! But it is only the cry of the thief to " stop thief !" hoping 
to deceive or bulldoze the people. Let the oppressed farming and 
industrial classes regard them not, but hurl back the epithets in their 
brazen faces, and move forward in strengthening their organizations 
and uniting their voices in the election of public servants who will 
repeal these robber laws and restore these properties to the people to 
be used for the common benefit. 



CHAPTER IX. 
A GENERAL SUMMING UP, 

SUGGESTING THE NECESSARY MEASURES FOR THE RESUMPTION BY THE 
PEOPLE OF THEIR SOVEREIGN PROPERTIES WITHOUT INJURY TO 
ANY ONE, AND FOR CHAINING THE DRAGON POWER OF MON- 
ARCHY AND MONOPOLY. 

Having seen that in a Republican government, recognizing the 
equal rights and sovereignty of the people, the lands, the money and 
public highways are national or common properties belonging to the 
sovereign people, and, as such, are constitutionally inalienable except 
by distribution in equal shares or benefits, without destroying the 
sovereignty, equal rights and liberties of the people ; and that who- 
ever (any one or class of citizens), by whatever means, whether by 
brute force or through the forms of law, can or may acquire the own- 
ership and control of these properties thereby acquires the elements 



20 

of sovereignty and the power of enslaving the people for their neces- 
sary use in the support of life and existence ; and having exposed 
the methods by which this has been accomplished, we are prepared to 
consider the measures necessary to arrest the operations of the tools 
and emissaries of Monarelry in undermining and destroying our Re- 
public, in the resumption by the people of their equal rights in these 
properties, and by limiting and restraining the operation of these de- 
structive methods in the future. 

In a Republic, as ours, the " voice of the people is the voice of 
God," so far as relates to their political condition. God has so de- 
creed it. When the children of Israel demanded a king God gave 
them one in His anger. And so, according to the laws of His provi- 
dence, any Republican people willing to have a king — willing to let 
one man or the few lord it over them — all they need to do is to su- 
pinely permit their legislators and public servants to rob them of their 
common properties and it is accomplished. But if the}' would main- 
tain their sovereignty and liberties they must resume and maintain 
their equal rights in their sovereign properties. It is therefore mani- 
fest that in adopting measures for this purpose the first great object 
must be to agree upon such measures as will combine and unite the 
voice of the people, to the greatest extent possible, in the election of 
legislators and public servants to accomplish the purpose ; and that, 
in order to secure the election of such legislators, the measures pro- 
posed and advocated by them must be of such character as will inflict 
no injustice or real injury on any class of their fellow-citizens. As. 
for instance, for the restoration to the people of their equal rights 
and benefits in their money, which, being created through the exer- 
cise of their co-operative or sovereign power, rightfully belongs to 
them, the measure to be adopted is simply the repeal of the national 
bank acts which unjustly and unconstitutional!}' invests these corpo- 
rations with the control of money and the profits of issue. The repeal 
of these laws will do no real injustice, even to the bankers themselves ; 
for it is simply the withdrawal of special privileges which Congress 
had no constitutional authority to grant. The same is true of the 
laws creating railway, telegraphic or other corporations now monopo- 
lizing the public highways of the country. These properties right- 
fully belong to the people by the fundamental principles of our gov- 
ernment. No actual title to these properties has ever been passed. 
At most, nothing more than a conditional lease or privilege to con- 
struct and operate them for a term of years, primarily for the com- 
mon benefit, lias ever been given ; and the conditions, expressed or 
implied, upon which this privilege was granted, has been continuously 
violated. Instead of being operated for the common benefit, by rea- 
sonable rates and charges on actual investments, the lessees have, by 
extortionate charges on watered or bogus stock, discriminations in 
freights and fares and other abuses of privilege, converted them into 
great instrumentalities for robbing the many for the benefit of the 
few. Even admitting the grants were constitutional (which we do 
not admit, but have proven not true), they have by these abuses be- 



27, 

come equitably and legally subject to forfeiture ; and for which abuses, 
viewed even as contracts between citizens, there is not a court in 
Christendom that would not annul them on the petition and complaint 
of the lessor. Hence, all laws creating such corporations should be 
repealed, and these properties be restored to tiie people and be ope- 
rated for the common benefit. And in view of the flagrant violation 
of the conditions upon which their privileges were granted, it is ques- 
tionable whether, in law or justice, the}' are entitled to any compen- 
sation ; but in any view, the most strained considerations of* equity 
would only require that private capital actually invested in their con- 
struction and equipment, not including profits of use, and deducting 
the value realized of all donations by the government, should be 
refunded. 

In avoidance, however, of the manifest necessity and justice of 
restoring these properties to the people, we have many politicians — 
sham Democrats and sham Republicans, and in a few cases men 
claiming to be reformers — advocating the legislative control of corpo- 
rations. This is generally a mere pretense to deceive and mislead 
the people, while leaving the corporations in possession to fleece them 
at pleasure. The only way to control these corporations is to destroy 
them. They have no constitutional right to existence. They are 
bastards and intruders, illegitimately begotten and thrust into the 
household and given the inheritance of the legitimate heirs by our 
faithless public servants. They must be thrust out, especially those 
which have been placed in control of the national or sovereign prop- 
erties of the people. And man}' others, as they now exist under 
present laws, are but little better. 

Thus, having shown that the legislation necessary to restore to the 
people their equal rights in their money and public highways, con- 
sists simply in the repeal of the unconstitutional laws creating the 
banking, railway and telegraphic corporations and transferring to 
them the control and usufructs of these properties which rightfully be- 
long to the people ; and having shown that the repeal of these laws 
will do no real injustice to any class of our fellow-citizens — that it is 
simply the withdrawal of unequal and special privileges that never 
should have been granted, and which our legislators had no constitu- 
tional power to grant — there is no reason why it should not be done. 
It must be done. 

But the principles and equities which underlie the ownership of 
land are greatly different. Titles to this property have been granted 
under all the forms of perpetual covenants, and although not strictly 
constitutional, yet for ages the}' have been recognized as valid titles 
by every class of our people, subject only to taxation. They have 
thus entered into all the ramifications of society, and almost every 
citizen has bought and sold under them. How, then, can this prop- 
erty be restored to the people in comparatively equal shares or bene- 
fits without destroying existing titles and cause no real injury to any 
class of our fellow-citizens, and so secure the general approval ? We 
never can hope to unite the people in the election of legislators -if the 



28 

measures proposed will inflict real injury upon an}* considerable 
class and thus provoke their active opposition. Besides, it would be 
an act of the greatest injustice, now that vast numbers of our fellow- 
citizens have invested their money in this property in good faith, even 
though they have acquired an undue share of it, for a mere majority 
of the people (even if a majorit}* could be secured, which we believe 
can never be done,) to adopt any extreme or radical measures bj T 
which such citizens would be made to suffer great loss. Such meas- 
ures would be but little better than actual violence, and would proba- 
bly provoke it. As, for instance, we have some well meaning 
reformers, seeing the fearful evils of the growing land monopoly, advo- 
cating a graded land tax, in which some of the higher grades proposed 
would be equivalent to or even worse than actual confiscation. An- 
other class, claiming to be reformers, have even proposed the destruc- 
tion of all existing titles, with some s} T stem of distribution and tenure 
based upon use or occupanej*, utterly impracticable and in conflict 
with the universal desire of every citizen to own their homes in sev- 
eralty by absolute titles. It is needless to say the voice and will of 
the people can never be united on any such measure. And still an- 
other class propose levying all taxation for the support of the gov- 
ernmen on land values ; .that is to say : make the gifts of God for the 
common benefit bear all the burdens of government. We maintain 
we have no right to say to any citizen that before receiving the inheri- 
tance that God has bestowed upon you, you shall agree to bear all the 
burdens of government. On the contrary, we hold that land, being 
the creation and gift of God for the common benefit, should be free 
to all in equal shares, and to a limited extent, approximating as near 
as possible equal ownership, should be exempt from all taxation. We 
believe this principle to be correct, and, in connection with other leg- 
islative measures, can be made the means for restoring to the people 
and maintaining approximate equal rights in this God-given heritage. 

But the question is still unanswered : How can the people recover 
or be restored to comparatively equal rights in the land without dis- 
turbing existing titles or doing any real injury to any class of citizens ? 
This is the real problem. We confidently answer that this can be 
done b} T shielding or exempting the homestead of even* citizen (no 
exceptions), actually owned by him or her, and used as such, to the 
extent of five hundred dollars, and not exceeding one thousand dol- 
lars, from all taxation, and all other exemptions be repealed. Every 
man of common intelligence can at once see that such a system would 
stimulate to the utmost all worthy, industrious citizens in our govern- 
ment who have been plundered and disinherited under the operation 
of the existing robber laws which we have exposed, to acquire homes 
of their own free from all taxation. It would at once stimulate in- 
dustry to the utmost, and open a door of hope — a window in heaven. 
as it were — to our disinherited and enslaved brothers and sisters. It 
would soon cover our whole land with an independent yeomanry de- 
voted to the government anci willing to shed their blood in its defence 
and in defence of their homes and firesides, against the combined 



29 

powers of Monarchy. But would not the operation of such a system 
work an injuiy to other citizens ? It would, perhaps, to a slight ex- 
tent, increase taxation on lands held in excess, and dispose monopo- 
lists to sell, not at a loss but at a profit, by reason of the increased 
demand in the purchase of homes. In a few short years the land 
monopoly would melt away like the noxious vapors of the night in 
the rays of the morning sun, and no citizen would be reall}' injured 
but all be benefited. But as a further aid to our disinherited fellow- 
citizens in acquiring homes of their own, to which the}' are entitled by 
all just laws, as well as to destroy the accursed s} T stem of excessive 
interest and usuiy for money, condemned alike b} T God, His prophets 
and all true Christians, the people should require their national legis- 
lators to create a sufficient amount of money with a bureau of govern- 
ment loans, and place it in charge of a secretary to be st}ded "The 
General Commissioner of Loans," and make it his duty to appoint 
agents or sub-commissioners in every county seat and important town 
throughout the United States (somewhat similar to the methods now 
pursued by our domestic and foreign loaning companies), to receive 
applications for loans b}' citizens not owning any land, to aid them 
in the purchase of homes, at about 3 per cent, interest per annum, on 
long periods of time, and also to aid citizens, to a limited extent, in 
redeeming their homes from liens and mortgages and paying exces- 
sive interest to bankers and other usurers now absorbing the profits 
and growing wealthy from the labor of borrowers. In all such cases 
a deed to the government in trust of the land so purchased or re- 
deemed — say at two-thirds of a fair valuation — should be deemed 
sufficient to secure the pa} T ment of the loan and interest. And in 
connection with these measures a limitation to the acquisition of land 
should be established, not too restricted, but sufficiently large to give 
reasonable scope to the spirit of acquisition existing in all men, but 
sufficiently limited to curb and restrain the spirit of Monarchy, which 
ever seeks to monopolize the national or common properties of the 
people and enslave them for their use. 

The inauguration of these measures is the only peaceful solution 
of the land monopoly problem which can ever sufficiently unite the 
general voice of the people to secure their adoption. We are, never- 
theless, aware that these measures, however plain, simple and practi- 
cable they are, ma} T be abused and perverted by our legislators and 
public servants if not restrained. Hence, the} T are particularly pre- 
sented in the Sovereign People's Political Platform as a sixteenth 
amendment to the Constitution. We have outlined them here in 
order to show that they are eminently practicable, and that their 
adoption will cause no real injustice to any class of our fellow-citi- 
zens. 

And now, dear reader, we have presented to you the outlines of a 
government of the people, by the people and for the general welfare 
of the whole people — a true Republican government, recognizing a 
common brotherhood of equal rights in our national or sovereign 
properties, with the measures for their recovery by the people, more 



30 

clearly exhibited in the Sovereign People's Platform and in the six- 
teenth amendment of the Constitution demanded in connection there- 
with, showing the proper methods for the resumption of these prop- 
erties by the people, and of forever limiting and restraining their 
legislators and public servants from robbing them of them and trans- 
ferring them to corporations and favored classes ; through the own- 
ership and control of which thej T are enabled to enslave them for their 
use, as in Monarchies. 

It presents to view that happy condition foreseen by the prophets 
of old to occur in the "latter days," when every citizen will be per- 
mitted to enjoy the fruits of their labor under their own vine and fig 
tree, with none to molest or make them afraid. It coincides with the 
chaining of the dragon — the bloody dragon power of Monarchy and 
monopoly ; with the overthrow of the dominion of Satan in the king- 
doms of the world ; with the time when the God of heaven shall set 
up a kingdom (a sovereignty of the people) that shall never be de- 
stroyed, but which shall break in pieces and consume all kingdoms 
and stand forever ; to the time when He shall possess the kingdoms 
whose right it is to reign ; to the revelation of that for which Chris- 
tians have prayed for eighteen hundred years : " TI13- kingdom come. 
Thy will be done on earth as it is done in heaven." 

" And I heard, as it were, the voice of a great multitude, and as 
the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunderings, 
saying: Alleluia, for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth." Rev.. 
16-6. This is the jubilant shout that will be heard on earth when 
the people shall recover or be restored to their equal rights in their 
land, their money and public highways, and their legislators restrained 
from robbing them of them. 

The author is well aware, however, that the members and benefi- 
ciaries of the banking corporations now controlling the mone}' and 
taxing the people from 10 to 50 per cent, per annum for its use. 
with few exceptions, will oppose and resist the withdrawal of their 
special privileges ; that the members and beneficiaries of railway and 
telegraphic corporations, with, perhaps, a few honorable exceptions, 
will oppose the repeal of the unconstitutional laws creating them, and 
the withdrawal of their special privilege of plundering the people at 
discretion ; that the bondholders will resist the payment of their 
fraudulent and unconstitutional bonds, and thus relieve the people 
from the payment of interest to them ; that the usurers of every hue 
and class will oppose the system of government loans to the disin- 
herited classes at a low rate of interest in the purchase of homes, and 
thus destroy their power to live on the labor of borrowers ; that the land 
monopolists, to a considerable extent, now owning large bodies of the 
hinds rightfully belonging to the people, will oppose the exemption 
of the homestead from taxation, and thus destroy their power of real- 
izing excessive profits and rents ; and that every sham Democrat and 
Republican Legislator who has wilfully given his vote to rob the peo- 
ple of their equal rights in their lands, their money and public high- 
ways and transferred them to corporations and favored classes, will 



31 

oppose any measure, however reasonable, conservative and just, for 
restoring to the people their equal rights in these sovereign proper- 
ties, and for limiting and restraining their power of robbing them in 
the future. Indeed, all the agents, tools and emissaries of Monarch}' — 
all their great hireling newspapers and brawling politicians — will op- 
pose and ridicule such measures as fanatic, Utopian and impracticable. 
But the disinherited, oppressed industrial and producing classes who 
have been and are yet being robbed, plundered and enslaved, must 
move forward, undismayed, in strengthening their organizations and 
uniting their voices in the election of public servants who will repeal 
these robber laws and restore these properties to the people ; ever 
bearing in mind the words of the Lord unto His servant Zerubbabel 
when rebuilding the temple : " Not by might or by power (violence), 
but b} T my spirit, saith the Lord of Hosts.'* Zach., iv. 6. 

As to this little book, notwithstanding all the criticisms and denun- 
ciations that ma}' be hurled against it, it will live and be read when 
all its critics have passed beyond that " bourne whence no traveler 
returns." The truths and principles enunciated will continue to 
spread and fructify the great heart of humanity until the measures 
advocated shall be accomplished. 



CHAPTER X. 

THE SOVEREIGN PEOPLES POLITICAL PLATFORM AND CONSTITUTIONAL 

AMENDMENT. 

Whereas, in a Republican government based upon and recogniz- 
ing the equal rights and sovereignt}' of the people, the land, with all 
the elements of nature, b}' the creation and gift of God for the com- 
mon benefit, with the money created through the exercise of their 
sovereign power, and the public highways of communication and com- 
merce, are national or sovereign properties which belong to the sov- 
ereign people, and as such are fundamentally and constitutionally 
inalienable, except by distribution in equal shares or benefits without 
destroying the sovereignt}', equal rights and liberties of the people ; 
and whereas, our legislators, to whom these properties were entrusted 
for equal distribution among the people for the common benefit, have 
assumed or usurped the power of creating banking, railway and tele- 
graphic corporations and other favored classes, and have transferred 
to them the ownership and control of these properties in vast amounts 
and unequal shares or benefits ; 

We therefore declare all such legislation to be without constitu- 
tional sanction, the most pernicious ' class legislation, destructive to 
the fundamental principles of our government, and but little less cul- 
pable than overt acts of treason against the sovereignty, equal rights 
and liberties of the people. We therefore demand the repeal of all 
such laws, and that our legislators and public servants, in their future 
administration and disposition of these properties, shall conform them- 
selves to the following methods : First : as concernino- 



32 



OUR LANDS. 

We declare the public lands to be national or sovereign properties 
belonging to the sovereign people, and demand that they shall be 
held or reserved for homestead purposes alone, and be distributed to 
actual citizen settlers thereon not owning or claiming airy other lands, 
in tracts not exceeding 160 acres, and to be granted only after three 
years actual residence and the erection of comfortable homestead im- 
provements thereon, and strictly prohibiting, under penalty of for- 
feiture, all sales to persons or citizens owning other lands until these 
conditions shall have been complied with. We further demand that 
all conditional grants of our public domain to individuals, companies 
or corporations, wherein the conditions have not been strictly com- 
plied with according to the terms of the grant, shall promptly by 
law be declared forfeited, and be restored to our public domain for 
homestead purposes alone. We further most emphatically condemn 
all laws, usages or customs through which aliens, not owing allegi- 
ance to our government, have been permitted to acquire recognized 
ownership of vast amounts of the lands of our country or controlling 
interests in any of our sovereign properties, and demand that our 
legislators, State and national, shall promptly, by appropriate legis- 
lation, arrest all future acquisition and control of such properties, 
public and private. And whereas a frightful monopoly of the lands 
of our country is being rapidly increased under existing laws in the 
control of individuals and corporations, we therefore demand, as a 
means for arresting the increase of such monopoly and restoring to 
the people approximate equal shares in this property, that the actual 
homestead of every citizen, without any exceptions, owned by him or 
her and occupied as such, to the extent of five hundred dollars and 
not exceeding one thousand dollars, shall be relieved from all taxa- 
tion except for common school purposes ; and that all other exemp- 
tions of this or other property shall be repealed. We also demand 
that, as a further measure for destroying the increasing monopoly of 
land, and the accursed system of exorbitant interest and usury fos- 
tered by existing laws, Congress shall provide for loaning money to 
citizens not owning an}' land, in the purchase of homes at a low rate 
of interest on long periods of time, substantial!}' as demanded in the 
constitutional amendment hereinafter submitted as a part of this 
platform ; and that a reasonable limitation to the acquisition of land 
shall be established. And second ; as concerning 

OUR MONEY. 

We declare that money, being created through the exercise of our 
sovereign power, belongs to us. the sovereign people, by right of cre- 
ation as well as by right of sovereignty, and that all profits and 
benefits arising from its creation and issue rightfully inures to the 
common benefit, We further declare that the power -To coin money," 
as delegated to Congress, is the power to make or create money by 
conferring on any suitable substance or material, when properly pre- 
pared for use as money, the functions of legal tender in the payment 



of all taxes and all debts, public and private. And whereas our pub- 
lie servants in Congress have assumed or usurped our sovereign 
power not delegated of creating - bank notes, silver certificates and 
other unconstitutional substitutes for money, and from this cause 
liable to fluctuations in value, causing great loss to the people, as in 
the case of silver coins when demonetized, and the old greenback 
currency by being deprived of a part of the functions of money ; we 
therefore declare that all such aets are the most shameful abuses of 
the high trust and power conferred upon them, and demand that they 
shall promptly by law provide for calling into our national treasury 
and destroying all such substitutes for money, and issue in lieu 
thereof paper money endowed with all the functions of legal tender 
in the payment of all taxes and debts, public and private, to be issued 
direct from the national treasury by the officers thereof, and not by 
or through any individual or corporation for private or corporate 
benefit. And third ; as concerning our 

BANKING CORPORATIONS. 

Whereas, our servants in Congress have assumed or usurped the 
power of creating banking corporations without a shadow of dele- 
gated authority ; and instead of creating money for our common 
benefit, have created a vast amount of national bank notes, a substi- 
tute for money unknown to our Constitution and unauthorized by it. 
and have transferred them to these illegitimate banking corporations, 
with power to loan and issue them to the people, in lieu of money, at 
exorbitant rates of interest or usury, and have exempted such notes 
from taxation, with other vast powers, privileges and immunities 
whereby they are enabled, to a great extent, to control the volume of 
money and thereby the value of labor and all its productions ; we 
therefore denounce all such legislation as treasonable usurpations of 
our sovereign powers not delegated, the most impious class legisla- 
tion, monarchial in character, destructive to the equal rights and lib- 
erties of the people and enslaving the many for the benefit of the 
few. and therefore demand the prompt repeal of all laws creating 
such corporations, and that such bank notes be called into our na- 
tional treasury and destroyed, and be substituted by a paper money 
invested by law with all the functions of legal tender in the payment 
of all taxes and debts, public and private. 

And whereas, in connection with this unconstitutional banking sys- 
tem, as a foundation therefor and a part thereof, our national legis- 
lators, through the abuse and perversion of the power •• To coin 
money, by the creation of a substitute for money — the old green- 
back currency — deprived of a part of the functions and uses of 
money, thereby causing its depreciation : and afterwards, by a most 
heinous prostitution of the power " To borrow money, provided by 
law for receiving this depreciated currency from the bankers and 
other speculators who had purchased it at less than half its nominal 
value, as being ••money borrowed."' and caused it to be funded into 
a monstrous interest-bearing 



34 



PUBLIC DEBT. 



freed from all taxation ; and afterwards, falsely declaring this pre- 
tended debt to be payable in gold and silver coins, did. in 1870 and 
afterwards, provide for re-funding this fraudulent debt so created 
into new bonds, extending the time of payment and making them 
specifically payable in gold and silver coins nine-tenths fine after long- 
periods of time, whereby we, the people, have been plundered of more 
than five thousand millions of dollars in principal and interest paid 
to these bankers and bondholders, while nearly half this debt remains 
unpaid ; we therefore denounce all the legislation by which this 
fraudulent debt was created as being the greatest robbery that was 
ever perpetrated on any people. But whereas the people, by the 
fourth section of the fourteenth amendment of our Constitution, rati- 
fied in 1868, recognized the validity of the debt as it then existed 
under the laws creating it, so. for this reason, we recognize the val- 
idity of the debt as it then existed, payable in lawful money after 
three, five and ten years ; and as the whole of this debt has become 
due and payable under the original laws creating it. we therefore de- 
mand its prompt payment in any lawful money possessing full legal 
tender functions, at the rate of twenty-five millions' of dollars per 
month, without regard to subsequent re-funding acts, which we de- 
clare to be fraudulent, unconstitutional and void. And fourth ; as 
concerning our 

RAILWAY AND TELEGBATHIC CORPORATIONS. 

We declare that»all railway and telegraphic lines of communication 
and commerce constitute public highways, and are national or sov- 
ereign properties rightfully belonging to us. the sovereign people ; 
that neither we nor our fathers have given constitutional authority 
for their alienation to corporations : and whereas, our legislators and 
public servants have created railway and telegraphic corporations, 
and have transferred to them the practical ownership and control of 
these properties, with vast amounts of our public domain, money and 
credit, with other vast powers and privileges, used, primarily, for 
private or corporate benefit, creating millionaires and enslaving the 
people : we therefore denounce all such legislation as being impious 
robberies of the people, destructive to their equal rights and liberties, 
derogatory to their sovereignty, and treasonable in character, as be- 
ing subversive of the fundamental principles of Republicanism ; we 
therefore demand the prompt repeal of all laws creating such corpo- 
rations, whether State or national, and that the practical and real 
ownership of these properties shall be restored to us. the sovereign 
people, and be maintained and operated for the common benefit. 
And whereas, by our Constitution of government we have delegated 
power to our servants in Congress ■■ To dispose of and make :ill need 
ful rules and regulations respecting the territory and other properties 
belonging to (the people of) the United States" for our common 
benefit, we therefore demand that they shall exercise the power thus 
conferred and promptly provide by law for taking absolute possession 



of these properties ; and. after providing for refunding to the incor- 
porators or other citizens any real investments in their construction, 
not including watered stocks or the profits derived for their use, and 
deducting the realized value of ail donations by the government, shall 
place all telegraphic lines under the charge of the Post-Office Depart- 
ment, and all railway lines under the charge of a Secretary or General 
Commissioner of Transportation, with such appropriate legislation for 
their management as may he necessary to secure to us. the sovereign 
people, the benefits thereof. And fifth ; as concerning our 

CONSTITUTION AND SOVEREIGN PROPERTIES GENERALLY. 

We again most emphatically declare that the land, with all natural 
elements, being the creation and gift of God for the common benefit : 
that money, being created through the exercise of our sovereign 
power : and that all public highways of communication and com- 
merce, whether natural or artificial, are national or sovereign proper- 
ties which belong to us, the sovereign people, and. as such, our equal 
rights therein are inherent and constitutionally inalienable except by 
distribution in equal shares and benefits : that aliens can acquire no 
legal rights therein : and that we have determined by peaceful and 
legitimate means to resume our constitutional and national rights in 
these properties without inflicting any real injustice on any class of 
our fellow-citizens : and we thus declare our sovereign will that our 
legislators and public servants shall govern themselves accordingly. 
And whereas, our legislators and public servants. State and Federal, 
legislative, executive and judicial, regardless of their trusts and their 
solemn obligations to support our Constitution of government accord- 
ing to its true intent and purposes, have, by usurpations, misconstruc- 
tions and perversions of the powers as delegated, plundered us of 
our equal rights in these common or sovereign properties and trans- 
ferred the practical ownership, control and usufructs thereof in vast 
amounts and unequal shares and benefits to corporations and favored 
classes ; and which, through the operation of such unjust and uncon- 
stitutional laws, are now plundering us of a great share of the pro- 
ducts and profits of our daily labor : we therefore imperatively 
demand that our public servants in Congress shall immediately, in 
manner and form as provided by our Constitution, submit to the 
States and people thereof, for ratification or rejection, without any 
material a. Iteration., the following amendment to our Federal Consti- 
tution, more clearly defining and limiting their powers in the admin- 
istration and management of our sovereign properties : 

ARTICLE SIXTEEN. 

Section 1. Whereas, the power ■• To dispose of and make all need- 
ful rules and regulations respecting the territory and other property 
belonging to the United States." as delegated to Congress by section 
3 of article IV. of our national Constituion. has been falsely construed 
to confer power on our public servants in Congress to give, grant and 
alienate the ownership, control and usufructs of our national or com- 
mon properties, consisting of the land, the money and public high- 



36 

ways of communication and commerce, to individuals or corporations 
at their discretion ; such assumption or interpretation is hereby de- 
clared to be erroneous ; and hereafter the term "To dispose of.*" as 
used in such grant of power, shall be understood to mean only the 
power to distribute these properties in equal shares and benefits to 
actual citizens, and to those declaring their intention to become such 
and taking the oath of allegiance to our government as prescribed by 
our naturalization laws. The word "territory" shall be understood 
to mean, primarily, our public lands ; in respect to which the power 
so delegated shall be understood to mean only the power to grant 
this property equally, in tracts not exceeding 160 acres, offer three 
years actual residence thereon, and the erection of comfortable home- 
stead improvements, and prohibiting, under the penalty of forfeiture, 
all sales to any citizen or company owning other lands until these 
conditions shall have been complied with. 

Sec. 2. In order to check the growth of the monopoly of land, a 
limitation to the acquisition of land is hereby established ; and, after 
the adoption of this amendment, no citizen or company owning six 
hundred and forty acres of land, not in a town or city, with more 
than four acres in the aggregate in a town or city of ten thousand 
inhabitants or less, or two acres in the aggregate in a town or city of 
more than ten thousand inhabitants, are hereb}' prohibited, under the 
penalty of forfeiture, from acquiring any other land in the United 
States ; provided that a husband and wife having children, or either 
being dead, the survivor or head of the family may acquire in the 
name of and for the use of each child one hundred and sixty acres, 
not in a town or city, with one lot not exceeding one-half acre in a 
town or city, in addition to the limit prescribed in this section, and 
hold the same in trust until such child or children arrives at lawful 
age. No other acquisitions shall be made except on the petition of a 
citizen to a State legislature, recommended by a majority of the county 
and municipal authorities in which such land or lots may be situated. 
And to enforce this provision, every person taking title to any land 
in the United States shall make an affidavit before some officer au- 
thorized to administer oaths, duly certified on the conveyance as a 
part thereof, that the land or lots so taken are not in excess of the 
limitation herein prescribed. And no conveyance shall be received 
as evidence of title in any court in the United States unless such affi- 
davit is duly certified thereon. And any false affidavit shall work a 
forfeiture of the title — one-half to the informer and one-half to the 
State — and subject the person making it to the pains and penalties of 
perjury. And all State legislatures may. in addition to regular taxa- 
tion, levy a tax not exceeding one-half of 1 per cent, on all land 
and lots held in excess of the limitation prescribed in this section. 

Sec. 3. As a further means to check the growth of the monopoly 
of land and to dissipate that now existing, the homestead of every 
citizen owned and occupied by him or her as such, to lite extent of 
Rye hundred dollars in value, but not exceeding one thousand dollars, 
as may be determined l>v the several State legislatures, shall he ex- 



empt from all taxation except for common school purposes. All 
other property, including money and all valid credits, whether repre- 
sented by accounts, notes of hand, stocks or bonds in any company, 
whether in the possession of the person to be taxed, any member of 
his or her family or other person or company, shall be taxed at their 
reasonable value ; and all legislative bodies levying direct taxes on 
property shall provide by law such measures as shall compel the ren- 
dition of all such property for taxation and adequate punishment for 
any failure or refusal to do so. The several State legislatures may 
also at their discretion require aliens holding titles to land in their 
several jurisdictions to sell them to actual citizens within a period of 
not less than ten years, and shall prohibit them from loaning money 
on land security. 

Sec. 4. The phrase " other property belonging to the United 
States," as used in said section 3 of article IV.-, shall be understood 
to relate, primarily, to the money and public highways of communi- 
cation and commerce as property belonging to the sovereign people 
of the United States. And as respecting money: The power "To 
coin money," as delegated to Congress by section 8 of article I. of 
our national Constitution, shall be understood to mean the power to 
make or create money. The execution of this power shall be under- 
stood to consist in the proper preparation, according to usual or im- 
proved methods, of paper, gold, silver or other suitable material for 
use as money, and by law providing that the material or materials, 
when so prepared shall, to the extent of the nominal value printed, 
stamped or engraved thereon, be a legal tender in the payment of all 
taxes and debts, public and private ; and which money shall be issued 
direct from our national treasury for value received, by the officers 
Thereof, and not by or through any individual or corporation for 
private or corporate benefit. And Congress is prohibited from mak- 
ing any more currency or substitute for money not being endowed 
with all the legal tender functions of money, and from authorizing it 
to be done by • any citizen or company. All State legislatures are 
likewise prohibited the use or delegation of such power. 

Sec. 5. It shall be the duty of our servants in Congress at their 
first session after the adoption of this amendment, to provide by law 
for making and issuing an amount of money equal to and not exceed- 
ing fifty dollars per capita of the population of the United States 
according to the census next preceding its adoption, and to increase 
the amount annually in proportion to the increase of population, in- 
cluding all full legal tender money then in circulation, but not 
including bank notes or other substitutes for money. And Congress 
is hereby required to call into our national treasury and destroy all 
such currencies or substitutes for money, and issue in lieu thereof 
the money as authorized to be made by section -4 of this amendment. 
And which amount of money when so made and issued shall not 
thereafter be decreased by conversion into an interest-bearing public 
debt, demonetization or otherwise. And Congress is prohibited from 
the purchase of gold and silver bullion to be converted into money. 



38 

Sec. 6. The money authorized to be made and issued by sections 
4 and 5 of this amendment shall be appropriated and issued for the 
following purposes : 

First. To substitute bank notes and other currencies to be destroyed 
as required in the previous section, and to supplement any deficiency 
in the general revenues for the support of the government, not exceed- 
ing ten millions of dollars in any one year ; and 

Second. For the prompt payment of the existing public debt at the 
rate of twenty-five millions of dollars per month, regardless of the 
so-called "credit strengthening" act of 1869 and the several acts 
providing for re-funding the debt and making it payable specifically 
in gold and silver coins and extending the time of payment ; all of 
which acts are hereb}~ declared to be unconstitutional and void : and 

Third. For loaning to citizens not owning any land and desiring to 
purchase land for a homestead, in sums not exceeding two thousand 
dollars nor less than two hundred dollars, on periods of time not ex- 
ceeding ten 3'ears nor less than three years, and at a rate of interest 
not exceeding three per cent, per annum. And for ail such loans a 
conveyance in trust to the government of the land or lots, when fairly 
worth one-third more than the amount of the loan applied for, shall 
be deemed sufficient to secure the payment of the loan with the inter- 
est paj'able annually ; and also for loans to other citizens in debt for 
their homesteads, not exceeding the limitations herein prescribed, 
under lien or mortgage or subject to judicial sales and paying more 
than five per cent, interest per annum on their indebtedness. In all 
such cases where the loan, not exceeding two thousand dollars, will 
extinguish all indebtedness for which the property is legally liable, a 
conveyance in trust to the government of the land or lots, when fully 
worth one-third more than the amount of the loan sought, shall be 
deemed sufficient, with the interest to be paid annually, to secure the 
payment of such loans. 

And in order to execute the purpose of loaning money to citizens 
as herein provided. Congress is hereby required, at its first session 
after the adoption of this amendment, to create a Bureau of Govern- 
ment Loans and place the same in charge of a secretary to be styled 
the General Commissioner of Loans, and make it his duty to appor- 
tion to the several States pro rata according to their respective popu- 
lations, at least one thousand millions of dollars of the money required 
to be created by section 4. and from time to time as much of the 
remainder as may be required and not otherwise appropriated by the 
first and second paragraphs of this section ; and also to appoint 
agents or sub-commissioners in every county seat and important town 
throughout the United States, on the petition of responsible citizens 
thereof, to receive applications for loans as herein provided and to 
recommend the same to the General Commissioner under such rules, 
regulations and instructions as he or Congress may deem necessary 
to secure the government against frauds and losses. And Congress 
shall enact efficient laws for the punishment of all frauds by the re- 
ceivers of such loans and of all officers employed in this service. 



39 

Sec. 7. The power "To borrow money on the credit of the United 
States,' - as delegated to Congress by section 8 of article I. of our 
Constitution, is hereby revoked. But Congress shall have power, in 
the event of prolonged war imperilling the existence of the Republic, 
to increase the amount of money authorized to be made and issued 
b} T sections -4 and 5 of this amendment to one hundred dollars per 
capita of our population. But such amount of money, if so increased 
and used, shall not thereafter be diminished by being funded into an 
interest-bearing public debt, demonetization or otherwise. But Con- 
gress may, as a further resource in the event of prolonged wars, pro- 
vide for receiving money on deposit and issuing certificates of indebt- 
edness therefor, redeemable at pleasure, and bearing a rate of interest 
not exceeding live per cent, per annum. 

Sec 8. All railway and telegraphic lines of transportation and 
communication are hereby declared to be public highways and national 
properties belonging to the sovereign people of the United States. 
And Congress is hereby authorized and required, after the adoption 
of this amendment, to take actual possession and control thereof, and 
provide for refunding all private capital actually invested in their 
construction and equipment, not including watered stocks or profits 
derived from their use. and deducting the realized value of all dona- 
tions by the States or national government ; and place all telegraphic 
lines under the charge of the Postmaster-General and all railway lines 
in charge of a secretary of a bureau of transportation created for the 
purpose. And Congress shall enact all necessary laws for the main- 
tenance and management of these properties for the common ben- 
efit, and for the punishment of all frauds and culpable mismanage- 
ment of this department of the public service. And Congress and 
all State legislatures are prohibited from investing any company or 
citizen with the control of any of our national or common properties 
for private benefit except as herein provided. And all courts, na- 
tional or State, before entering on the duties of their office shall be 
specially sworn to enfore by their judgments or decrees the proAisions 
and limitations of this amendment, 

o 



CHAPTER XL 

CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS. 

We suppose that many objections will be urged by the banking. 
railway and other corporations now invested with the ownership, con- 
trol and usufructs of the national or common properties of the people, 
against the measures demanded in the People's Platform and Con- 
stitutional Amendment. And among others an utterly senseless and 
groundless objection will possibly be urged as to centralization and 
monopoly of power in the hands of the government — -of corruption 
and the inability of the government to manage these properties, with 
a •• thousand and one " other nonsensical objections of politicians, 
party bosses and blatherskites. As to centralization and monopoly 
of power in the government, this is probably the moss nonsensical of 



40 

all, although often made by the agents, attorneys and subsidized daily 
newspapers of the monopolists. We have always understood since 
we Inwe learned our A, B, C's that centralization and monopoly con- 
sisted in the concentration of power and property in the control of 
the few, but when it is proposed to disperse power and the ownership 
of propert}* in the hands of sixty millions of people, this is denounced 
as centralization and monopoly by these party bosses. Surely the 
men using such arguments are lunatics or knaves. Every man of 
common sense who will read the platform and amendment will plainly 
see that the object is to destroy monopolies — to decentralize — to limit 
and restrain our legislators and public servants from the use of the 
powers they have usurped and centralized in themselves — the power 
of plundering the people of their common properties, and giving a 
monopoly of them to corporations and favored classes — the true 
source of all monopolies. And as to corruption : The assumption of 
this power by our public servants opened wide the door to bribery 
and corruption. It was virtually a notice or advertisement to the 
world that they had the power to sell and alienate these properties 
like absolute sovereigns, and practically an invitation to bidders : 
Who will give us most or bribe us highest ? And could the people 
see at one view the amount of bribes that have been paid and the 
corrupting influences that have been used to induce their legislators 
and public servants to plunder them of these properties they would 
be perfectly amazed. But by the amendment it is proposed to limit 
and restrain their public servants from transferring these properties 
to corporations and favored persons or classes, and so close the door 
of bribery forever. And unless this is done there can be no hope for 
redemption. 

As to the incapacity of the people through their government to 
manage these properties, it is only necessary to point to the success 
of their control and management of the great postal system of the 
United States, involving the receipt and disbursement of more than a 
hundred million of dollars a year, and the management of many thou- 
sands of employees. We would like to be informed why a commis- 
sioner of transportation, with the aid of all necessary legislation. 
20uld not manage a railway as well as Jay (Jould or any other man. 



THE GREAT SUIT. 

TRIAL FOR THE RIGHT OF PROPERTY 



the sovereign people ) Suit Pending in their 

vs. High Court of Sov- 

THEIR PUBLIC SERVANTS ET A I,. ) ereigntv. 

Forty millions of the rightful heirs and devisees of their fathers 
•oniplaiuing of and against their legislators and public servants and 
•ertaiu others of their co-heirs, hereinafter specified, represent : 

That in or about the year 177.") and for man}* years previous to 
•aid time, their fathers were the owners by natural right of all the 



41 

territory now known as the United States of America, having by their 
labor and toil redeemed it from its primeval, natural condition and 
making their homes therein and thereupon. That on or about said 
time, and for many years previous, one King George of England and 
his confederates, known as the Parliament of England, disputed the 
rightful claim of their fathers and wrongfully claimed a monopoly of 
the lands comprising said territory with the right to govern and tax 
them at discretion ; and to enforce their unjust claims committed 
many acts of tyranny, and so vexed and harrassed their fathers that 
they- were compelled by force to resist their encroachments. W here- 
upon the said King George and his said confederates hired large 
armies and with swords, bayonets and other instruments of war. for 
many years endeavored by rapine and war to enforce their claims 
and subjugate and enslave their fathers ; but that they, by their hero- 
ism, blood and treasure in this behalf expended, finally expelled the 
armies of King George and his minions from said territory and secured 
the unquestioned right thereto, with all the rights and prerogatives of 
sovereignt}' ; and thereupon established a Republican government, 
recognizing the sovereignty of the people with equal rights of inheri- 
tance in their lands and other common properties ; and that, by their 
last will and testament, embodied in the Constitution of the United 
States, they bequeathed their said properties in equal shares and 
benefits to their posterity, and appointed certain persons, hereinafter 
designated legislators and public servants, administrators and execu- 
tors of their said will, and requiring them before entering on the 
duties of administration to take a solemn oath or obligation to faith- 
fully execute the provisions of their will. 

Complainants represent that among other provisions of said will, 
designed by the fathers, as declared in the preamble thereof. "To 
establish justice, to secure domestic tranquility, provide for the com- 
mon defence, promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of 
liberty to themselves and their posterity." were the following : -To 
coin money.'" "To borrow money.*' and "■ To dispose of and make all 
needful rules and regulations respecting the territory and other prop- 
erties belonging to (the people of) the United States." 

But complainants aver and charge that said legislators and public 
servants, in violation of their solemn obligations, combining and con- 
federating with other heirs and legatees, hereinafter designated bank- 
ing, railway and other corporations and favored classes, entered into 
a great conspiracy with them for plundering a large portion of the 
heirs of their rightful inheritance in said properties for their especial 
use and benefit ; and, in order to accomplish their nefarious designs, 
falsely assumed that the power "To coin money." •• To borrow 
money." and "To dispose of the territory and other properties" of 
the heirs, conferred upon them discretionary power to sell, give and 
alienate these properties to said corporations and favored classes like 
absolute sovereigns ; and that, thus usurping powers not conferred 
by the testament of the fathers, instead of coining money for the 
common benefit of the heirs, they have coined substitutes for money 



42 

deprived of a part of the functions of money, causing their deprecia- 
tion ; and when by this cause they were greatly depreciated and had 
been secured by themselves, bankers and other favored heirs, then, 
likewise perverting the power "To borrow money,*' provided for re- 
ceiving these depreciated substitutes for money as being money bor- 
rowed and converted them at par into an interest-bearing public debt, 
freed from all taxation, and proceeded to levy taxes on the balance 
of the heirs for the benefit of themselves and their confederates. 

And complainants further aver and charge that said legislators and 
public servants, in the execution of the great conspiracy, without any 
authority in the testament of the fathers, created said banking, rail- 
way and other corporations and transferred to them the ownership 
and control of the money and public highways with vast amounts of 
the territory constituting the United States ; in all of which complain- 
ants aver they have an equal interest ; but that, through the usurpa- 
tions of powers not conferred and the perversions of powers conferred 
by the testament of their fathers, as herein recited, and many others 
not specified, their said legislators and public servants have com- 
pletely plundered and disinherited them of their equal rights in the 
estate of their fathers, and that said unlawful claimants of said prop- 
erties now monopolizing them are wresting from them a great share 
of the profits of their daily labor for the use thereof. 

Wherefore complainants bring suit in the People's High Court of 
Sovereignty, and demand that they be restored to their equal rights 
in the properties bequeathed to them by the said testament of their 
fathers ; that the said corporations and other favored classes shall be 
ousted from their illegal possession thereof ; that the said legislators 
and public servants who have robbed and plundered them of their 
equal rights in said properties shall be ousted from the administra- 
tion ; and that other administrators and executors shall be appointed 
in their stead. And as in duty bound to themselves, their God, their 
families and their country, memorialists will ever pray. 



TO OUR MONOPOLISTS. 

Gentlemen : You will observe that the author of this work has 
discarded the popular methods of denouncing monopolists and mill- 
ionaires, while honoring the legislators and public- servants who have 
unconstitutionally and treasonably, in violation of their oaths and 
trusts, plundered the people of their national or common properties 
and transferred them to you, through the ownership and control of 
which you have become millionaires and are impoverishing and en- 
slaving the people for their use. He recognizes the fact that you are 
but men. with like passions of others, and that probably a great ma- 
jority of those who denounce you. had they possessed the sagacity or 
had the opportunities that have tempted you. they would have done 
:is you have done. So he blames you not except in so far as you 
may have used bribes, directly or indirectly, in corrupting the legis- 
lators and public servants of the people in the acquisition of these 



43 

properties. But these he has scourged with a pitiless exposure of 
their methods in undermining and destroying the fundamental prin- 
ciples of our government and paving the way to Monarchy and Impe- 
rialism. 

It is with the hope of arresting this ultimate, which all his- 
tory shows can only be reached through a bloody revolution, and 
which, in our government, would probably prove more ruinous, even 
to your own interests, than has ever occurred in the history of the 
world. The author therefore urges you to pause and reflect. He 
has pointed out methods by which these disasters may be prevented 
without doing any injury to yourselves or others ; and he submits 
the question for your earnest consideration : Would it not be better. 
even for your own interests, to aid in the great movement for a peace- 
ful solution of our political troubles than to submit them to the doubt- 
ful arbitrament of brute force ? History is repeating itself in the 
methods by which the great crisis is being approached, but history 
need not and will not repeat itself in its solution. Mark our words ! 



TO PATRIOTS AND REFORMERS. 

The author hopes he has convinced you that the land, the money 
and public highways of communication and commerce are national or 
common properties which rightfully belong to the people in equal 
shares and benefits, and that whoever (any one or class of citizens), 
by whatever means, whether by brute force with sword and spear, as 
usually practiced in the establishment of Monarchies, or through the 
forms of unconstitutional laws, as practiced by the legislators and 
public servants of the people in Republican governments, can or may 
acquire the ownership and control of these properties, thereby ac- 
quires the elements of all wealth and sovereignty, and the power of 
enslaving the people for their use. All history demonstrates these 
truths, and hence it is manifest that the people must resume the 
ownership, control and their equal rights in these properties as the 
first and most important measure in maintaining their sovereignty 
and liberties. History also demonstrates the truth that no man nor 
set of men can be entrusted with disc ret ion 'try power in the adminis- 
tration and distribution of these properties : that kings have ever 
seized and appropriated them for the maintenance of their sovereignty 
and the enslavement of the people for their use : that aristocrats and 
oligarchs have seized and appropriated them for like purposes ; while 
our own legislators and public servants, entrusted with them under 
the most solemn obligations to divide and distribute them among 
the people in equal shares and benefits and to protect them in their 
equal rights therein, have, in violation of their oaths and trusts, 
robbed the people of them and transferred them in vast amounts and 
unequal shares and benefits to corporations and favored persons and 
classes, which, now holding a monopoly of them, are enslaving the 
disinherited industrial millions for their use. precisely as in Mon- 
archies or oligarchies. Hence, it is manifest the people, as the see- 



44 

ond measure of political reform, must by constitutional amendments 
more clearly define, limit and restrain their legislators and public 
servants in the administration and distribution of these properties. 
And hence, the author, reasoning from facts which cannot be dis- 
puted or gainsaid, having exposed the unconstitutional methods by 
which the legislators and public servants of the people have plundered 
them of their equal rights in these properties, has formulated a peo- 
ple's platform demanding the necessaiy measures for their recovery 
by the people, and a constitutional amendment more clearly defining, 
limiting and restraining their public servants in the administration of 
these properties in the future. Can we not unite on these two cardi- 
nal principles or measures in the election of legislators and public 
servants who will execute them ? If not, then it needs no prophet, 
nor son of a prophet, to declare that there is and can be no hope of 
redemption ; and that histoiy must and will be repeated in the de- 
struction of our government as other republics have been destroyed 
in past ages of the world. But no extreme or radical measures can 
be used in the process of resumption that will inflict any real injury 
on any class of citizens, else .the people can never be sufficiently 
united in the election of public servants to execute them. 

You will observe that in the body of our work and in the proposed 
people's platform and constitutional amendment we have utterly ig- 
nored the so-called great question of 

THE TARIFF. 

not that we regard it as an absolutel}' unimportant question, but be- 
cause it is overshadowed by the necessity of reinstating the funda- 
mental principles which constitute the basis and very existence of 
our government. And we now affirm, and correct statistics will 
prove its truth, that the people have been and are yet being plundered 
of more money and more of the profits of their labor in one year 
through the monopolies of their land, their money and public high- 
ways, than has been done through unnecessarily high tariff's during 
the whole existence of our government. And the truth is. that the 
undue prominence given to this question in every political campaign 
is hut a conspiracy between the leaders and bosses of the two old 
parties to call off the attention of the people from their great rob- 
beries, and keep them warring upon each other in their respective 
parties, while they, with their bastard corporations and favored 
classes, are absolutely impoverishing and enslaving them through 
rents for land, interest for money and tribute on their commerce over 
their public highways. The arguments used in this tariff' contest l>\ 
the party leaders, orators and bosses of both parties are based upon 
groundless assumptions, gross exaggerations of facts or downright 
falsehoods. The true policy exists between them, and the tariff', if 
properly adjusted, would be a tariff for protection as irtll as />/■ reve- 
nue. So we say to the people and all reformers, to absolutely refuse 
to listen to any discussion of this question until their equal rights in 
their land, their money and public highways shall have been restored 
to them, and their legislators and public servants shall be forever 



45 

restrained from robbing them of them. Then we will be able to ad- 
just the tariff and other less important questions on true economci 
principles. 

o 

THE END. 

Note. — We had just completed this work and placed it in the hands 
of the printers for publication, when our attention was arrested by 
the information that Secretary Lamar had overruled or reversed the 
rulings of Land Commissioner Sparks in relation to certain lands 
seized or located by the Omaha and other railway companies outside 
of their vast reservations, amounting, as was stated, to 329,000 acres. 
It appears that Commissioner Sparks had decided they were illegally 
located, and declared the lands to be public domain and subject to 
homestead settlement. But it seems the fiat of Secretary Lamar has 
the effect to give to these railroad companies 329,000 acres of land 
outside of their reservations without any special statute providing 
for it. We know nothing further in respect to this question. These 
lands are probably worth a million or a million and a half of dollars, 
and' the ruling of Secretary Lamar virtually has the effect to invest 
these companies with the title. It is plain to be seen that these rail- 
way companies, as a profitable business transaction, could well afford 
to pay Secretary Lamar a quarter or half million of dollars, or a large 
share of the spoils, to bias his judgment. We do not charge that 
this was done, but it is manifestly possible. We only refer to the 
matter to impress upon the minds of the people the absolute necessity 
of more definitely limiting and restraining the power of their public 
servants from plundering them of their national or common proper- 
ties and transferring them to corporations and favored persons or 
classes. This we have urged throughout our work. 

Thk Author. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



027 273 557 8 



